OpenCola (drink)

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OpenCola

Type Cola
Manufacturer Opencola
Country of origin Canada
Introduced 2001
Related products Free Beer

OpenCola is a brand of cola unique in that the instructions for making it are freely
available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and
improve on the recipe as long as they, too, license their recipe under the GNU General
Public License. Since recipes are, by themselves, not copyrightable, the legal basis for
this is untested.[1]

Although originally intended as a promotional tool to explain free and open source
software, the drink took on a life of its own and 150,000 cans were sold. The Toronto-
based company Opencola founded by Grad Conn, Cory Doctorow, and John Henson
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."

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Flavoring formula
• 2 Concentrate formula
• 3 Dilution
• 4 See also
• 5 References

• 6 External links

[edit] Flavoring formula

• 10.0 g food-grade gum arabic (Important: Do NOT use art-grade gum arabic!)
 • 3.50 ml orange oil
• 3.00 ml water
• 2.75 ml lime oil
• 1.25 ml cassia oil
• 1.00 ml lemon oil
• 1.00 ml nutmeg oil
• 0.25 ml coriander oil
• 0.25 ml neroli oil
• 0.25 ml lavender oil[2][3]

[edit] Concentrate formula

• 2.36 kg plain granulated white table sugar
• 2.28 L water
• 30.0 mL caramel color
• 17.5 mL (3.50 tsp.) 75% phosphoric acid or citric acid
• 10.0 mL (2.00 tsp.) flavoring formula
• 2.50 mL (0.50 tsp.) caffeine (optional)[2][3]

[edit] Dilution
After mixing up the concentrate to the prescribed recipe (including all recommended
safety precautions - see links), the syrup is diluted 5:1 with ("preferably Sodium-free")
Soda Water 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 and sugar, in order to make the entire process open source
(as otherwise there would be a need to use commercially-produced bottled or canned
soda, or consumer carbonation machines such as Soda Stream with commercially
manufactured carbon dioxide canisters).[2][3]

[edit] See also

• Free Beer, open source beer
• Open Source Beer Project, an open source beer
• Coca-Cola formula

[edit] References
1. ^ "U.S. Copyright Office - Recipes". 2008. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html.
Retrieved 2008-12-28.
2. ^ a b c "OpenCola.com - Soft Drink Formula - Internet Archive". 2001.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010218075323/www.opencola.com/download/3_softdrink/
formula.shtml. Retrieved 2008-12-28.
 3. ^ a b c Amanda Foubister (2001). "OpenCola Soft Drink Recipe" (PDF). OpenCola.com.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/OpenCola_soft_drink_recipe.pdf.
Retrieved 2008-12-28.

[edit] External links

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on
OpenCola (drink)
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: OpenCola recipe

• OpenCola soft drink

• Cube Cola Bristol UK
• How to Make OpenCola - WikiHow
• OpenSoda, a continuation of the OpenCola work for recipe and methodology

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