What is Coke Made of
When launched Coca-Cola’s two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. The cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from kola nuts — Coca-Cola (the ‘K’ in Kola was replaced with a C for marketing purposes).
Coca — Cocaine
Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a significant dose, whereas, in 1891, Candler claimed his formula (altered extensively from Pemberton’s original) contained only a tenth of this amount. Coca-Cola did once contain an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass, but in 1903 it was removed. Coca-Cola still contains coca flavoring.
After 1904, Coca-Cola started using, instead of fresh leaves, “spent” leaves — the leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process with cocaine trace levels left over at a molecular level. To this day, Coca-Cola uses as an ingredient a cocaine-free coca leaf extract prepared at a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey. In the United States, Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant. Stepan laboratory in Maywood, New Jersey, is the nation’s only legal commercial importer of coca leaves, which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Besides producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, Stepan Company extracts cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, a St. Louis, Missouri pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use.N.J. Stepan buys about 100 metric tons of dried Peruvian coca leaves each year, said Marco Castillo, spokesman for Peru’s state-owned National Coca Co.[26]
Kola Nuts — Caffeine
Kola nuts act as a flavoring in Coca-Cola, but are also the beverage’s source of caffeine. In Britain, for example, the ingredient label states “Flavourings (Including Caffeine)”. Kola nuts contain about 2 to 3.5 percent caffeine, are of bitter flavor and are commonly used in cola soft drinks. In 1911 The U.S. government initiated United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, hoping to force Coca-Cola to remove caffeine from its formula. The case was decided in favor of Coca-Cola. Subsequently, in 1912 the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act was amended, adding caffeine to the list of “habit-forming” and “deleterious” substances which must be listed on a product’s label.
