The Coca-Cola Recipe: Coca-Cola has been around since 1886, and try as desperately as they might, no one has been able to replicate its distinct taste. That’s how you know you have a good beverage on your hands! Inventor John S. Pemberton kept his recipe a secret and even refused to write it down for fear of people copying his success; it was finally jotted down when Ernest Woodruff purchased the company in 1919. The physical recipe then made the rounds between New York’s Guaranty Bank, Atlanta’s Trust Company Bank, and finally the World of Coca-Cola, which is where it resides today. It is currently housed in the so-called Vault of the Secret Formula, and it remains a very closely guarded trade secret.