OpenCola (drink)
Brand of open-source cola
title: "OpenCola (drink)" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["cola-brands", "open-content-projects", "food-and-drink-introduced-in-2001", "copyleft-media", "soft-drinks"] description: "Brand of open-source cola" topic_path: "general/cola-brands" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCola_(drink)" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Brand of open-source cola ::
::data[format=table title="infobox beverage"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | OpenCola |
| image | Opencola.jpg |
| type | Cola |
| introduced | |
| related | Free Beer |
| :: |
| name = OpenCola | image = Opencola.jpg | type = Cola | introduced = | related = Free Beer
OpenCola is a brand of open-source cola 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 the later-defunct 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, and John Henson under the GNU General Public License. The released version is 1.1.3, as of 20 February 2001. 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 shut down in 2003, having become better known for the drink than for the software it was supposed to promote. Laird Brown, the company's senior strategist, attributed its success to a widespread mistrust of big corporations and the "proprietary nature of almost everything".
Flavouring formula
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/OpenCola_oils.jpg" caption="Flavouring oils used in OpenCola"] ::
The flavouring formula for OpenCola is:
- 10.0 g food-grade gum arabic
- 3.5 mL orange oil
- 3.0 mL water
- 2.75 mL lime oil
- 1.25 mL cassia oil
- 1.0 mL lemon oil
- 1.0 mL nutmeg oil
- 0.25 mL coriander oil
- 0.25 mL neroli oil
- 0.25 mL lavender oil
Concentrate formula
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/OpenCola_Ingredients.jpg" caption="Ingredients of OpenCola"] ::
- 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.) flavouring formula
- 2.5 mL (0.50 tsp.) caffeine (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-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, otherwise there would be a need to use commercially produced bottled or canned soda, or consumer carbonation machines with commercially manufactured carbon dioxide canisters.
References
References
- Paul Heltzel. (9 April 2001). "OpenCola-Have Some Code and a Smile". [[MIT Technology Review]].
- Malyn. (18 February 2007). "OpenCola - Open Source Coca Cola". Digital Journal.
- Ian Steadman. (13 April 2013). "Open source cola and the 'Napster moment' for the food business". [[Wired (magazine).
- (2001). "OpenCola.com - Soft Drink Formula - Internet Archive".
- Amanda Foubister. (2001). "OpenCola Soft Drink Recipe". OpenCola.com.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::