Why do artificial flavors like Apple, Cherry, Banana, etc taste exactly like real Apples, Cherries, Bananas, etc but Grape flavored anything just tastes like the color Purple instead of real Grapes.
In: Other
Artificial flavors tend to be esters of alcohols and acids. For most fruit only a particular ester dominates. Hence just using this ester mimics the taste.
Basically pick a alcohol and a carboxylic acid(read as: alcohol acid)
eg. 2 carbon atom alcohol (ethyl) and 2 carbon atom acid (ant acid) give you ethyl formate, which are the flavors: strawberry also: lemon, rum
switch out the 2s for any number and look up the flavor for fun!
Remember: common alcohol is 2nd in the list, which is why when distilling you only need to be careful with methyl(1 carbon) alcohol.
long list: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester#List_of_ester_odorants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester#List_of_ester_odorants)
The issue now becomes that fruits are much more complex hence you might notice a certain difference in taste. That’s where the difference comes from.
Full disclosure: there is also cyclic stuff, but screw that for now. [Hexagonal stuff]
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