Candler was maniacal about protecting his secret recipe. He demanded that no one ever write it down. All labels were removed from ingredient containers. Staff had to identified the ingredients by sight and smell only. All invoices from the ingredients suppliers were shredded, so that employees could not discover what they were and sell the information to rivals.

Over the years, the company has made much of its “secret recipe,” which is so cloak-and-dagger that a major “secret ingredient” is known only as Merchandise 7X. The formula is kept in a bank vault. The company claims that any given time only two people know how to mix the 7X flavoring, and they can never travel on the same plane in case it crashes. It makes for good press.

While it’s easy to determine the general ingredients in a lab analysis, the Merchandise 7X unique flavoring has been elusive.

Now, producers of the Public Radio show “This American Life” claim to have uncovered the identity of Merchandise 7X. It’s a mix of seven ingredients.

A February 18, 1979 article on the history of Coca-Cola, published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, included a photograph that claimed to be a handwritten copy of the Pemberton Coca-Cola recipe, written in a friend’s leather-bound recipe book of remedies and ointments.

A portion of an image from an early Coca-
Cola company check. The original can be
purchased at Scripophily.net.

Instead of trying to recreate the original, we recommend that you purchase some Boylan’s Cane Cola. It has a wonderful old-fashioned taste that might be quite similar to Candler’s final product. Their sugar-free cola is just as delicious—you won’t know it’s sugar free.

Like Coca-Cola, Boylan’s is certified kosher. Read our review of Boylan Bottleworks, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week.

Call friends over for a fondue party.
Photo courtesy Emmi Roth Käse.

There are three traditional types of fondue: beef, cheese and chocolate. Beef fondue consists of cubes of meat dipped into hot oil to cook and served with sauces. Chicken, scallops, shrimp and other proteins can be substituted. Cheese fondue is a pot of seasoned melted cheese served with cubed bread and often, fruit and vegetables. Chocolate fondue is melted chocolate served with fruit, cake cubes and other dippers.

Traditionally, fondue has been served at the table in a pot or dish set atop a warming stand heated with a candle or sterno. Today’s portable induction burners don’t have the romance of a flickering candle, but do a more even job of keeping the oil/cheese/chocolate at the right temperature.

• The history of fondue and other types of melted cheese dishes
• Classic cheese fondue recipe
• The different types of Swiss cheese used in fondue (know your Appenzeller from your Emmenthaler)
• 18 Cheese Fondue Recipe Variations—from blue and goat cheese to smoky and south-of-the-border
• Cheese fondue dippers
• Cheese fondue garnishes

We taste most things blind. So before we knew it was organic or carbon negative, we thought it was a great cup of coffee.

Then, we found out how sustainable it is, first through organic agriculture (no pesticides to pollute the environment or the farmers plus conservation of the land).

The name, Tiny Footprint, refers to the company’s carbon footprint. A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas produced, directly and indirectly, to create and sell a product.

For an individual, one’s carbon footprint is the result of everything it takes to support all of one’s life activities—food, shelter, transportation and so forth. Everything you buy and use makes your footprint grow. The larger your carbon footprint, the more greenhouse gas you generate. Greenhouse gas creates climate change (previously known as global warming).

Delicious coffee for you, a bonus for the
environment. Photo by Katharine Pollak |
THE NIBBLE.

For each pound of coffee purchased, the company more than offsets the carbon impact of harvesting, roasting and distributing its coffee by planting a small plot of saplings in the Mindo Cloudforest of Ecuador.

Reforestation helps to protect dozens of threatened bird species and other forest animals by replacing habitats that have been cut down for cattle ranching, lumbering, tourism and general human expansion. And it helps the atmosphere: Plants take in carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, for photosynthesis. In the process, they expel oxygen.

• Read the full review, which also directs you to where you can calculate your own carbon footprint.
• Find more of our favorite coffee brands and recipes.
• Master the language of coffee in our Coffee Glossary.

These Dove chocolate hearts are about to
be pressed into oatmeal cookies. Photo
by River Soma | THE NIBBLE.

• Solid chocolate can be chopped up and converted into hot chocolate.
• It can also be melted and used to dip bananas, strawberries and raspberries—plus cookies, potato chips and pretzels.
• If you have chocolate-covered caramels, melt and use to coat pretzels. It’s divine!
• Filled chocolates and caramels can be chopped up and added to brownie batter, cupcakes and Rice Krispies Treats.
• Take a page from Hershey’s Kisses and press candies into fresh-baked cookies.

Or, just bring them to work and set them out. They’ll disappear like magic.

What would you do with leftover Valentine chocolate and other Valentine candy?

There are many people like her. No wonder beer cocktails are on the rise.

Beer has been mixed for centuries. The Black and Tan is a mix of stout plus lager or pale ale; Shandy is a mix of beer and lemonade; the Boilermaker is beer and a shot of whiskey; the Michelada is beer with lime, salt, picante sauce and sometimes, tomato juice.

Now, Nation’s Restaurant News reports a trend in beer cocktails, mixing beer with absinthe, coffee, port and other mixers.

The photo shows a Muddy Puddle, the signature cocktail of JoeDoe in New York City.

Bourbon, iced espresso and simple syrup are shaken and poured over ice into a pilsner glass rimmed with crushed peanuts. The drink is then topped off with Sierra Nevada stout.

Other recipe ideas:

A beer cocktail with stout, bourbon, iced
espresso and simple syrup, garnished with
peanuts. Photo courtesy Nation’s Restaurant News.

 
Call up your inner mixologist to develop your own ideas.