Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN mostly cites it as a notable example of reverse engineering a famously secret formula, not as a recommendation.
What it is
LabCoatz uses mass spectrometry, with help from other science YouTubers, to reverse engineer the Coca-Cola flavor and builds a chemically-identical replica. The video walks through a year of work on the formula.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2026 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites wpm · 2026-01 · on “Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-back of digital rights”
Someone just used gas chromatography to develop a seemingly passable knock off of the unpainted Coca Cola formula and posted it online. [this video]
Cites pogue · 2026-01 · on “People who know the formula for WD-40”
The guy on YouTube who just recreated the formula of Coca-Cola with HPLC & etc should take a crack at it Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year) by LabCoatz [this video]
Cites umvi · 2026-01 · on “People who know the formula for WD-40”
Some YouTuber basically reverse engineered it, and he found that the main thing contributed by the coca leaves were tannins. [this video]
Cites linsomniac · 2026-01 · on “People who know the formula for WD-40”
Slightly unrelated, the recent LabCoatz video went into a bit about the CocaCola recipe and how it's protected: [this video] He mentions that the ingredients are shipped unlabeled from different facilities who don't know what they're making. He then goes on to reverse engineer the formula. Because science.
Cites cyberax · 2026-02 · on “The Economics of a Super Bowl Ad”
I don't know, I can distinguish between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola easily. I prefer Diet Coke, FWIW. I also now have a bottle of Lab Cola from [this video] and it _is_ indistinguishable from regular Coca-Cola to me. So it might be plausible in case of a deliberate Coca-Cola knock-off?
Cites tareqak · 2026-04 · on “DIY Soft Drinks”
Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year) - LabCoatz : [this video] This content creator used a mass spectrometer to find the flavoring used in Coca-Cola.
Cites znpy · 2026-04 · on “DIY Soft Drinks”
Reminds me a lot of this video where the authors claim to have essentially replicated the true coca-cola flavor: [this video]
Cites bit-anarchist · 2026-06 · on “Hospitals and universities repurposing drugs at 90% lower cost”
I don't think Coca Cola is a good counterpoint due to a couple of reasons: 1) there was a recent attempt to find the formula [1], but the primary reason that was infeasible is that, allegedly by the ingredient list, they use coca extract and, IIRC, only one company provides that in the US, due to FDA regulations. Even if they were find the formula behind, it wouldn't help much, so they're are trying to replicate the flavor instead. 2) Coca Cola is, before anything, a brand. It's not comparable to generic medications because people in general don't buy it for the formula specifically, but the expectation of flavor and taste associated with the brand. Even if you were to find the current formu