“Now this is a perfectly cromulant subject to continue discussing,” said the moderator as she sipped her Diet Cherry Coke. “Zombie, yes, but honestly it’s not the most cosmic topic ever so there’s no compelling reason to close it down.”
But I am moving it to Cafe Society, from IMHO.
I am really drinking Cherry Coke, by the way. I love it!
Mmmm, Cherry Coke Zero. Basically the best drink ever made.
I cannot get on board with the OPs long-simmering rant. Artificial cherry is delightful, as are most red flavorings. Artificial grape and orange should be banned in every form, although I quite like real grapes and oranges. Luckily for me I have a husband who will eat all my purple and orange candies until the merciful ban comes down.
Cherry and coconut are the two best flavors ever.
Grape and banana are the worst.
The one I hate is fake watermelon. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to real watermelon flavor, not that any of the artificial fruit flavors taste anything like the fruit they’re aping.
Artificial cherry is the worst! I haven’t ever lowered myself to try banana-flavored anything, so there is the possibility that it is gag-inducing, too. My kids always had liquid Amoxicillin for their earaches that smelled like fresh strawberries and they drank it eagerly, so it can’t have tasted too bad. Unfortunately, I am very allergic to penicillin, so I never tried it…but I always wanted to.
And I must be the most unobservant person here. I never figure out these things are zombies until someone mentions it. I guess I never look at the date line…
Go get a can of Faygo Grape soda. It’s the only grape flavored thing I’ve ever liked. Even their diet grape is really good(but not as good as non-diet).
Oh, and get a can of Faygo Grape. For some reason, it tastes best from a can. No idea why.
There is only one flavor that that actually makes me gag just to think about it.
And that is cherry.
Trigonal Planar, I suspect you’re confusing cause and effect. It’s not that the artificial cherry flavor inherently tastes bad. It’s that, early on, you learned to associate that taste with being sick, going to the dentist, etc.
This is the flavor I thought of first when I read the thread title.
I think that’s my problem with raspberry. It was the nasty, Triaminicol cough syrup that my pediatrician prescribed when I was a kid. I hated it SO much that I couldn’t WAIT to eat or drink something, anything, immediately following it. So Mom used to make me take a teaspoonful of it as I was on my way out the door for school, knowing that I had a good 15-20 minutes before I could reach the water fountains at school. 
Sometimes (not ALL of the time) artificial grape has a nasty egg-salad aftertaste. (aftersmell?)
I agree that most artificial flavors are nothing like The Real Thing, but except for my raspberry association above I like 'em as much as the real thing.
What flavor is red icing supposed to be? I just tastes like a chemical to me.
I hate the flavoring they put it blue-colored mouthwash. (I don’t remember the brand, but I think they all might use the same flavor for each color. It tastes exactly like the smell of the toilet-bowl cleaner my parents used when I was a kid.
I’ll agree that artificial cherry flavoring tastes nothing at all like real cherries (to the extent it tastes like any real fruit, it’s pomegranates), but I happen to love it.
See, I’d say fake coconut and banana are the worst. Grape can be bad, but it can also be good, though not as good as the real thing. For example, Welch’s sparkling grape juice is much better than any artificially flavored grape soda. And there are no green aftereffects, if you know what I mean.
God, these ancient zombie threads with a bunch of members who never post anymore are so pathetic - I’m going to be here FOREVER, dammit. I am NEVER going to be one of those ancient names.
ETA - I have always LIKED the fake cherry flavor, especially cherry cough syrup and cough drops, cherry kool-aid (just drank some of it, actually), etc. But I hate fake-orange and fake grape. ESPECIALLY fake-orange. Ironically it seems as though EVERY TIME I ever get a gumball, it always turns out to be the orange one. It’s become a running joke among my friends and family.
Count me in with you two. Fake watermelon and fake banana are THE WORST.
Once I tried dehydrating watermelon in my food dehydrator (note: not worth it). I ended up with little gummy bits that tasted nothing like watermelon, but were eerily familiar…they tasted like watermelon candies!
Turns out that watermelon flavor, while it doesn’t taste like watermelon, tastes like watermelon without the water. Whodathunk?
Fake banana flavoring (eg in soft candies) is nasty, but I love things made out of the real deal.
