Why does Diet Tango taste so good?

Factual Questions
1

To me - all diet softdrinks have a familiar, slightly unpleasant aftertaste. I counter this by drinking them with lots of ice.

But Diet Tango tastes just like a non-diet orangeade drink. Even without ice.

The ingredients are carbonated water, orange fruit (8%) acids (citric, malic) flavouring, acidity regulator (sodium citrate), antioxidant (ascorbic acid) sweetners (acesulfame K, aspartame, saccgarin), preservative (potassion sorbate), colour (beta-carotene)

“Contains a source of phenylalanine”

nutrition info per 100ml

energy 23kj/5kcal
protein 0.1g
carbs 0.7g
fat trace

this from a 330ml can.

2

that should be ‘saccharin’

and ‘potassium’
( I was picking up a can every 2 seconds)

3

This is just my own subjective impression, but for some reason Aspartame tastes far more like sugar when it’s in a non-carbonated drink rather than a carbonated one, although I can offer absolutely no explanation for this. In Kool-Aid, for example, it tastes almost indistinguishable from sucrose. But in a carbonated beverage, it has a distinct saccharine-like aftertaste.

4

It tastes even better if you mix it with vodka and absinthe. About 2:1:1 ratio. Don’t ask me how I know. I don’t want to talk about it.