Coca-Cola Recipe Revealed

(Coca-Cola revealed recipe report updated with additional detail and comment from Coca-Cola.)

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Coca-Cola's (KO) tightly guarded recipe was reportedly published by National Public Radio's This American Life earlier this week.

"The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world," the radio program's Web site wrote. "Locked in a vault in Atlanta. Supposedly unreplicable. But we think we may have found the original recipe."

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To find the top secret 125-year-old recipe This American Life turned to a 1979 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a newspaper in Coca-Cola's hometown of Atlanta. Apparently page 2B of the Feb. 18 edition contained a photo depicting a hand-written copy of John Pemberton's original recipe in a leather-bound recipe book, a book that contained other ointment and medicinal formulas and was passed down for generations to family and friends.

Coca-Cola was invented in the 1880s by a Pemberton, a pharmacist.

"I am not kidding," said This American Life host Glass at the top of the show. "One of the most famously guarded trade secrets on the planet: I have it right here and I am going to read it to you. I am going to read it to the world."

Rivals like PepsiCo (PEP) have been fairly successful in coming close to Coca-Cola's signature taste, but the "Merchandise 7X flavoring" that provides Coke's unique flavor profile has remained an enigma.

Glass called Merchandise 7X "the cartoonishly super-secret, cloak-and-dagger name" of Coke's key ingredient.

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