LabCoatz' "Pirate" Cola

Written down set of instructions on a mostly accurate recreation of the Coca-Cola recipe as researched by LabCoatz. No "AI" used.

Ethical considerations.

While the authors of this document don't consider the Coca-Cola recipe as something to strive after, and think that in a creature friendly world such a recipe should have little to no relevance, they also consider the current (2026-01-09) world to be far from that ideal, and consider the creation of resources that help undermine the dominance of corporations, especially ones with a horrid past and present history of (child) slave labor and genocide, such as The Coca-Cola Company, a step in the right direction.

A similar project already exists at the time of the creation of this one, but exhudes strong signs of being mostly LLM "AI" generated, which the authors are disgusted by. No "AI" was used in the creation of this document.

This project employs the Olivia Hill rule - fascists are disallowed from reading or engaging this document. If this rule is upsetting to you and you wish to debate it, you are probably a fascist and are disallowed from engaging with this project.

Note

This project is distributed under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. Commercial use of this project is endorsed. The license only applies to this presentation itself, We claim no ownership over the recipe itself or the original media it comes from.

Background.

The recipe is written down from the video for ease of access, since, unfortunately, the original has no written instructions (the video now provides the recipe in the description, though We still see value in keeping this project around as a more easy to handle place with extra details), also in case the video suffers an unjust DMCA takedown. Also to have that not be "AI" slop (unlike a certain other project with a similar goal and worse execution). We will try to update it if the original gets updated, open an issue if you know of a change that's not in here yet.

Release video: „Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year)” [cc] en-US

▸ 25m ↥ 2026-01-08, 14:00 GMT | LabCoatz✓ alt. frontend, backup • 🛈by CF🌌🏳️‍⚧️&ΘΔ
Also on Patreon, PayPal, Facebook, old tesla coil site (Wix), United Tesla Coil Builders (Discord)

Recipe.

Warning

Concentrated phosphoric acid is mildly corrosive and undiluted flavors and essential oils can be irritating or toxic. Never consume, unless properly mixed and diluted to safe levels. Tea tree oil is not GRAS (generally recognized as safe to eat), although the few microliters added to this cola shouldn't cause health issues due to the low dosage and similarity to the chemical makeup of other sodas.

• Do not use metal cookware, it can be attacked and dissolved by phosphoric acid.
• Proper mixing and aging matter!
• Some of the chemicals used are mildly hazardous, wear protective equipment, especially gloves, double check measurements and don't taste any of the unmixed ingredients.

Note

Regarding the types of essential oils to use, there is not a standard for "food grade" essential oils...as long as the sample is verifiably pure, that's as good as it gets. Brands like NOW and Aura Cacia seem to be reasonable. For the fenchol, different CAS numbers should be suitable as long as the sample is over 90% alpha-fenchol. There are no substitutes for fenchol, and despite what Wikipedia says, basil does not contain a significant amount of it...based on my research, it might have some fenchone or fenchyl acetate, but that's it, and these are minor components. Fenchol has a very distinct, heavily musty, earthy, or moldy smell, with some camphor or mint-like notes in high doses.

Equipment.

• mass scale
• 1000µL adjustable micropippette
• 50mL graduated cylinder
• 1L storage bottles
• heat resistant glasware for making the syrup
• magnetic stirrer optional
• 1L volumetric flask optional

Ingredients.

Per liter of cola (version 111):

• 104g Sugar
• 1mL flavor solution A
• 10mL flavor solution B

Flavor solution A (7X flavoring).

• 45.8mL lemon oil
• 36.5mL lime oil
• 8.0mL tea tree oil (from Australian tea tree, Melaleuca Alternifolia)
• 4.5mL cassia cinnamon oil
• 2.7mL nutmeg oil
• 1.2mL orange oil (regular sweet orange)
• 0.7mL coriander oil
• 0.6mL fenchol (any version of alpha-fenchol should work)

Dilute 20-21mL of the oil mixture to 1L using 95% ethanol. Let age for a day or two before continuing.

Tip

If the alcohol is an issue, you can emulsify the oil into the water with the help of gum Arabic. TODO: Figure out "Glen and Friend's Cooking" reference for this.

Flavor solution B.

Put into roughly 200mL of hot water, give each ingredient time to fully incorporate until adding the next.

• 185mL Durkee or 320mL Shank's caramel color

  Tip

  Other brands' colors should work as well, just make sure it's actual caramel color and not a mixture of red and green food dyes. Amount needed for the right color may differ depending on product used.

• 150g food-grade vegetable glycerin
• 43mL 85% phosphoric acid
• 10g wine tannin (can use more)
• 9.65g caffeine
• 10mL vinegar (5% acidity)
• 10mL vanilla extract

  Tip

  Alternatively mix 0.95g of vanilin per liter solution and use 1mL of that.
  (The original video says 9.5g, but the 2026-01-26 description says 0.95g, with no mention about the discrepancy, see changelog below.)

Once everything is dissolved, dilute the mixture to a final volume of 1L using water.

Preparation (for 1L of cola).

• Add 104g sugar and just enough water (≈260mL filled incl. the sugar shown on video) to dissolve everything into a glass dish.
• Mix until fully dissolved.
• Add 10mL of the water-based solution (Flavor solution B)
• Add 1mL or a couple drops more, to taste, of the alcohol-based solution (Flavor solution A)
• Cover to prevent volatile flavors from escaping.
• Microwave or otherwise heat the mixsture until nearly boiling.
• Let fully cool.
• Dilute syrup up to 1L with cold carbonated water.

  Caution

  If manually carbonating, carbonate the water before diluting, otherwise foam is likely to overflow and lead to bacterial growth.

• Allow the soda to rest for a day or so in the fridge.

Changelog (source recipe, not this project).

• Version 111B (A written recipe is added to the video's description.) Taken on 2026-01-25.

  same as video, but use 10 grams of tannin and 160 grams of glycerin. And if you use Durkee caramel color (since Shanks no longer seems to be available), use 185mL instead of 320mL, since it's much stronger.

  • B 8g → 10g tannin
  • B 175g → 160g glycerin
  • B 320mL Shank's → 185mL Durkee caramel color
  • B 9.5g/L → 0.95g/L alternative vanilin solution ⚠️ Undocumetend change ⚠️ Possibly got mixed up with the 9.65g caffeine in the voiceover?
  • A (7X) "regular sweet orange" clarification to orange oil.
  • Written recipe follows the order of the one shown at 16:20 of the video, not the order in which the video itself presents them.
• Version 111C Taken on 2026-03-02.
  • B 160g → 150g glycerin.
    • Addition of "food-grade vegetable glycerin", no more "less can be used" note.
  • B 45mL 85% phosphoric acid → 43mL
  • A (7X) Addition of "(any version of alpha-fenchol should work)", "(from Australian tea tree, Melaleuca Alternifolia)" notes.
• New essential oil note.

Further mentions.

• Trying to reproduce Labcoatz' Coca Cola recipe [cc] auto ▸ 38m ↥ 2026-01-24, 14:30 GMT | William Osman 2✓ alt. view • 🛈by CF🌌🏳️‍⚧️&ΘΔ
  • Their recipe summary as a Google Doc.

Further data from the video.

https://youtu.be/JYN5sNOiA6s https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jf504954p