OpenCola is a brand of

open-source cola Open-source cola is any cola soft drink produced according to a published and shareable recipe. Unlike the secretive Coca-Cola formula, the recipes are openly published and their re-use is encouraged. The texts of OpenCola and Cube-Cola recipes ...

whose list of ingredients and preparation instructions are freely available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe. It was launched in 2001 by free software P2P company Opencola, to promote their company.

Background

The original version 1.0 was released on 27 January 2001 by Grad Conn,

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of ...

, and John Henson. The current version is 1.1.3. Although originally intended as a promotional tool to explain

free and open source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

, the drink took on a life of its own and 150,000 cans were sold. The Toronto-based company Opencola became better known for the drink than the software it was supposed to promote. Laird Brown, the company's senior strategist, attributes its success to a widespread mistrust of big corporations and the "proprietary nature of almost everything".

Flavouring formula

The flavouring formula for OpenCola is: * 10.0 g food-grade

gum arabic Gum arabic, also known as gum sudani, acacia gum, Arabic gum, gum acacia, acacia, Senegal gum, Indian gum, and by other names, is a natural gum originally consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the '' Acacia'' tree, ''Senegalia sen ...

* 3.5 mL

orange oil Orange oil is an essential oil produced by cells within the rind of an orange fruit (''Citrus sinensis'' fruit). In contrast to most essential oils, it is extracted as a by-product of orange juice production by centrifugation, producing a co ...

* 3.0 mL

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

* 2.75 mL

lime Lime commonly refers to: * Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit * Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide * Lime (color), a color between yellow and green Lime may also refer to: Botany ...

oil * 1.25 mL cassia oil * 1.0 mL

lemon The lemon (''Citrus limon'') is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China. The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culin ...

oil * 1.0 mL

nutmeg oil Nutmeg oil is a volatile essential oil from nutmeg (''Myristica fragrans''). The oil is colorless or light yellow and smells and tastes of nutmeg. It contains numerous components of interest to the oleochemical industry. The essential oil consist ...

* 0.25 mL

coriander Coriander (;

oil * 0.25 mL

neroli Neroli oil is an essential oil produced from the blossom of the bitter orange tree (''Citrus aurantium subsp. amara'' or ''Bigaradia''). Its scent is sweet, honeyed and somewhat metallic with green and spicy facets. Orange blossom is also extract ...

oil * 0.25 mL

lavender oil Lavender oil is an essential oil obtained by distillation from the flower spikes of certain species of lavender. There are over 400 types of lavender worldwide with different scents and qualities. Two forms of lavender oil are distinguished, '' ...

Concentrate formula

* 2.36 kg plain granulated white table

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

* 2.28 L water * 30.0 mL

caramel color Caramel color or caramel coloring is a water-soluble food coloring. It is made by heat treatment of carbohydrates (sugars), in general in the presence of acids, alkalis, or salts, in a process called caramelization. It is more fully oxidized than ...

* 17.5 mL (3.50 tsp.) 75%

phosphoric acid Phosphoric acid (orthophosphoric acid, monophosphoric acid or phosphoric(V) acid) is a colorless, odorless phosphorus-containing solid, and inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is commonly encountered as an 85% aqueous solution, w ...

citric acid Citric acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula HOC(CO2H)(CH2CO2H)2. It is a colorless weak organic acid. It occurs naturally in citrus fruits. In biochemistry, it is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle, which occurs in t ...

* 10.0 mL (2.00 tsp.) flavouring formula * 2.5 mL (0.50 tsp.)

caffeine Caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine class. It is mainly used recreationally as a cognitive enhancer, increasing alertness and attentional performance. Caffeine acts by blocking binding of adenosine t ...

(optional)

Dilution

After mixing up the concentrate to the prescribed recipe (including all recommended safety precautions), the syrup is diluted 5:1 with ("preferably

sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable iso ...

-free")

soda water Carbonated water (also known as soda water, sparkling water, fizzy water, club soda, water with gas, in many places as mineral water, or especially in the United States as seltzer or seltzer water) is water containing dissolved carbon dioxide gas, ...

to make the finished drink; at this dilution, the above combination of ingredients will yield approximately 24 litres of OpenCola. The full recipe also includes instructions for home-made soda water produced from basic ingredients such as

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constitut ...

and

in order to make the entire process open source; otherwise there would be a need to use commercially produced bottled or canned soda, or consumer

carbonation Carbonation is the chemical reaction of carbon dioxide to give carbonates, bicarbonates, and carbonic acid. In chemistry, the term is sometimes used in place of carboxylation, which refers to the formation of carboxylic acids. In inorganic ch ...

machines with commercially manufactured

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

canisters.

References

External links

OpenCola soft drink

Cube-Cola
Bristol, UK
How to Make OpenCola
-

WikiHow wikiHow is an online wiki-style publication featuring how-to articles on a variety of topics. Founded in 2005 by Internet entrepreneur Jack Herrick, its aim is to create an extensive database of instructional content, using the wiki model of ope ...

The recipe from Wiki-How
condensed into a single, easily printable page
OpenSoda.org
a continuation of the OpenCola work for recipe and methodology
OpenCola
on

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...