MONMOUTH, Ill. — Monmouth College assistant professor of chemistry Brad Sturgeon is willing to unveil a secret recipe. Now, it’s not as big as Duke, the talking dog, revealing information on Bush’s Baked Beans, or finally learning KFC’s 11 herbs and spices, but there are certainly some inquiring minds on campus who want to know his inside information.

But first, it’s no secret that Monmouth College is seeking to create opportunities to bring its science and business departments together. That has been the thrust of the college’s proposed academic complex and it is also behind one of the new courses being developed for the college’s Midwest Studies Initiative.

Sturgeon and his faculty colleague, assistant professor of political economy and commerce Keith Williams, are participating in what Sturgeon said “may be the first actual physical collaboration between our science and business departments.”

Sturgeon and four students – freshmen Roy Sye of Arlington Heights and Kyle Earman of Olympia Fields and transfer students Ramon Ceja of Galesburg and Brandon Borowski of Mokena – have been developing various beverage products, including an iced coffee, a ginger ale and “Peach Tree Soda.”

“By working on these products, the students have been given an avenue to ask questions and go into the lab to look for answers,” said Sturgeon, whose interest in soft drinks was sparked by wanting to create better and cheaper beverages for his own family.

Earlier this month, students in Williams’ junior-level “Principles of Marketing” class became involved, sampling the beverages and “getting a flavor for product research.”

The “flavors” they liked best were the iced coffee and the Peach Tree Soda, according to Williams, who said his students broke into three different focus groups and asked questions about the products, in addition to doing a taste test.

“We’ll be involved with designing a marketing plan with the possibility of commercializing it on campus,” said Williams.

Sturgeon said that is especially true for the coffee drink, which has a “Starbucks” quality.

“We’ve mentioned it to the campus food service, and there’s the potential we could sell it through them if we decide to scale up production,” said Sturgeon, who added that the campus coffee shop in Wallace Hall, which is independent of the food service, would also be interested. “We have a vanilla version, and we can tweak the recipe and make one with a cinnamon flavor and one that’s butterscotch. Actually, the hardest thing to account for if we increase production is the bottles. To buy them in a small supply, the bottles are about 75 cents apiece.”

However, Sturgeon said it would be possible to start with a collection of 300 unique bottles, and then have those bottles be recycled and returned to the chemistry department. Through a sanitation process involving iodophor, the bottles could be used again, saving on costs.

“Although I don’t think our product is vastly different from what you can get at Starbucks, an appeal might be for consumers who want to think locally,” he said. “Rather than coming from Seattle to Chicago to Monmouth, this is something that would originate right here.”

Sturgeon also said it’s possible that larger equipment will be available for roasting coffee beans as part of an investment in the college’s new nutrition lab.

“This is just the beginning of a number of different initiatives that we’re trying to tie together,” he said.

Although reluctant to give too much away about his students’ work, Sturgeon did provide a couple key details of the beverages’ recipes. An ingredient that distinguishes the vanilla coffee drink, he said, was “sweetened condensed milk,” while Peach Tree Soda is actually a carbonated version of Crystal Light’s peach tea product.

Asked if carbonating was an easy step, he replied, “For us it is. You can’t necessarily do it at home. What carbonating does is take a known drink and give it a different perspective. Our taste buds are stimulated by CO2, and it’s like adding flavor to the drink.”

Besides creating a tasty product, Sturgeon said the interdisciplinary project “gives us an opportunity to discuss some subjects that might not come up in a typical chemistry or business classroom.”