Arcane- mysterious; known only by a select few
Ex: Secret recipes, for all the steps that their proprietors take to keep them arcane, are actually quite easy to guess. And that is exactly what I will attempt to do in the following passage.
Coca Cola: Easy-peasy. This is a concoction made from cocoa beans, coffee beans, the oil filtered out of a 2012 Dodge Dart with 150k miles, vanilla, sassafras, cinnamon, nutmeg, cocaine, caramel color, Tyra Banks color, lemon, orange, and high fructose corn syrup, all aged in a barrel made from the same cherry wood as George Washington’s false teeth. Diet Coke is the same but replace the cocaine with Adderall. Coke Zero is the same but replace the cocaine with fentanyl.
Snapple: Famous for their slogan, “made from the best stuff on earth”. This makes it extremely simple to ascertain what’s in their brew. I know that none of their many flavors taste like these things, but if we take their slogan at face value, we may surmise that their base recipe consists of the following: The feeling of celebration experienced upon witnessing a mortal enemy fail catastrophically; surf and turf followed by ice cream while sitting on a beach in the South of France; the dialogue in any Coen brothers movie; unbuckling your belt after eating barbeque; soldiers reuniting with their dogs; saying “I told you so” to the person that you had previously told that it would be so.
Kentucky Fried Chicken: Colonel Sanders’ original recipe consists of 11 herbs and spices. They are as follows. Salt. Pepper. A sassy black woman shaking her finger and going, “mmm mmm mmm, I know you did not just say that!”. Monosodium Glutamate. Anabolic steroids. Garlic powder. Genetically modified pre-downregulated insulin receptor homing missiles that lock on to fat cells. Paprika. Gout. Ginger. Permissive parenting.