I think the only place where water can be un-kosher is in New York City... and sugar is always kosher, IINM.

Never really understood the idea that to give the hechsher a secret recipe needed to be revealed. The mashgiach needs to know what ingredients enter the plant, which isn't a big secret anyways since that can be chemically analyzed by a competitor. It's the process of preparing coke that might be a secret, but that has nothing to do with hashgacha.

Just another opportunity to be obsessive. Keep'm coming!

1. Yes, all the syrup is made in Atlanta, where it gets a hekhsher (you can even buy the syrup straight, for medicinal purposes) and is then shipped to bottlers around the world. Some bottlers have a hakhsher, some don't. The bottlers add water, CO2, and sweetener, which is about 99% of any soft drink.

2. Yes, Tobias Gefen was given a list of a bunch of flavors which included, but wasn't limited to, all the flavors in Coke. If he found a trayf flavor, they either told him it wasn't included or found a kosher alternative (non-kosher glycerin was one).

3. The "original formula" thing is a PR stunt anyway, for a bunch of reasons:

a. At least some people have to know, for obvious reasons. How else will they make it?

b. The formula was made public via a leak over a hundred years ago.

c. Coke has changed its own formula many times. The original drink had actual cocaine (more on that below); now it obviously doesn't. The original source of caffeine was the bitter kola nut (hence the sweetener, and hence Coca-Cola, for cocaine and kola) but now they use pure caffeine, the stuff that's left over when you decaffeinate coffee. In the US (except on Pesach) they switched from sugar to corn syrup. They even just changed the Coke Zero formula recently. And so on.

("Cola" flavor, by the way, for any drink, is a mixture of cinnamon, vanilla, and citrus. Not too complicated. Like any soft drink, their natural color is clear- remember that 99% above. It was colored brown to hide impurities; there are no impurities now, but people got used to the color.)

d. Most importantly, anyone could know Coke's formula and it wouldn't matter, as it is illegal to make it. All coca leaves legally imported into the US go to one plant in New Jersey, the only one in the country legally allowed to import them. That plant removes the drug component from the leaves and sends it to a drug company in Colorado- again, the only place legally allowed to possess the stuff- that has a huge stash of cocaine powder which is processed into various medications, anesthetics, etc. The leaves, stripped of all stimulants (except caffeine) but still with flavor, unless that's also a PR move, are sent to Atlanta, where they are used in making Coca-Cola- the only company legally allowed to use the leaves.

So you could find the formula and unless you went on a leaf-picking expedition to Colombia, you'd essentially wind up with a sort of off-brand cola, or maybe Pepsi or RC at best.

Although again, that may all be PR and the coca may contribute nothing to the taste.

Fda laws., ALL ingredients must be listed. There is no such thing as a secret formula. Flavourings can be labeled as such. If there was an offending ingredient in the flavourings it would be batel b’ shishim, actually batrl b’ millions. Coca cola doesn’t have flavourings as an ingredient anyway.

That is not true. Artificial flavouring is considered a trade secret. The labs are very protective of their formulas. The FDA classifies them under the category of GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe). This allows them to protect their formulas while still meeting FDA approval.