Astro Hacker News - Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola [video]

lurn_mor |next [-]

Quite informative, and a laundry list of flavor names/chemicals that sound far more dangerous than they taste. Interesting find is vinegar, which might have offered a small germ-fighting benefit and given Coca Cola the 'medical' qualities it initially sold for...

foxyv |root |parent [-]

I think that the cocaine was the origin of its medical debut.

1970-01-01 |next |previous [-]

Perfect meaning tasters would be initially fooled, but would correct themselves and note that the tastes were slightly different in A/B testing. The formula wasn't cracked it was emulated to a high degree of accuracy.

Suppafly |root |parent [-]

I didn't watch the video, but assuming they used a mass spectrometer, the end result will be identical to the real thing, anyone tasting otherwise is deluding themselves.

tomcam |root |parent [-]

Mass spec is indeed demonstrated multiple times

anishgupta |next |previous [-]

I didn't see the full video, but in a nutshell its quite some effort. For a person who has a bad tastebud like me, every dark colored carbonated drink tastes almost the same to me :(

glemion43 |root |parent [-]

You are not missing anything though.

Just a lot of sugar

0cf8612b2e1e |next |previous [-]

Now I am wondering are there any industrial processes that use a common commercial product as a standard?

Coke, Guinness, etc all probably have exquisite quality control. Is it in the manual of any equipment, “congratulations on your new FooBar pH meter. To confirm the correct operation, a CokeCola should give a reading of X”

Suppafly |root |parent |next [-]

The government has reference products that a lot of processes use. https://shop.nist.gov/ccrz__ProductList?categoryId=a0l3d0000...

one that gets mentioned occasionally on the internet is the peanut butter: https://shop.nist.gov/ccrz__ProductDetails?sku=2387

0cf8612b2e1e |root |parent [-]

I was more imagining a completely pedestrian sourced sample. Those are likely large aggregate pools to minimize heterogeneity. Looking for something like, “Go to corner store, buy 12 pack canned CokeCola (with aspartame), dilute 1:10, measure”

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richardatlarge |next |previous [-]

It would be interesting to know more about how it's actually manufactured and whether he has ideas about why the classic formula was changed -- maybe something to do with the cost of one of the steps, which the video suggests could be true, as it's damn complicated

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hulitu |previous [-]

> Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola

Which version ? In EU it tastes different in almost every country.

a_paddy |root |parent [-]

The concentrate is produced by Ballina Beverages, then regional bottlers add the bulk ingredients like sugar and water. Hence every version being a little different.