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You could ship a sample out to get a liquid chromatography mass spectrometry analysis done.

Then when it comes back with 4000 molecules as a result, figuring out which 2 spices are responsible for 3993 of those.

A lab specializing in analyzing food will be able to help with that too.

Usually only a few aromatics will make up the bulk of the flavor and they’re well known molecules, especially if they’re synthetic.

Does this mean all "secret" recipes have been useless IP protection for a long time?

No, a mass spec can only give you a list of molecules, like a list of ingredients but after they’ve been cooked. It can’t give you the raw ingredients or the recipe.

Most soda is sugar water with a few well known synthetic flavors added so it’s easy to identify. Secret recipes like Coca Cola are far more complex to make without easy synthetic alternatives. Any recipe that caramelizes sugar, for example, is hard to reverse engineer.

Somebody should be able to build a Large language model of Molecules to ingredients.

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