NY is home to the IFF-- International Flavor and Fragrance -- they produce, test, market flavoring agents.. and well as test product for flavor and (and taste) since taste buds can only taste, salt, sweet, sour and bitter, everything else is aromatic flavor.. sensed by the nose.. (which is why, when you have a cold, food is often "tasteless") In a HS bio class, we were fed apples and raw potato's --blindfolded, and with nose clips on.. you can't tell the difference between the two. all of the apple taste is aroma or fragrance-- plus sweetness and crunchiness-- which a potato also has.
and as for tasting purple, i don't know if there is such a taste- but red, green and yellow exist at flavors..
red is spicey, and some what hot on the tongue. where as green is cool, and fresh, and yellow is fruity..
and the difference between kool-ade and other better tasting flavors is time and money. artifical flavors don't have to be bad-- but good flavors, like good perfumes, are much more expensive. and in some cases, it just doesn't matter.. the chemicals that are the active ingredients give NyQuil its "green death flavor" and there is not much you can do to change that.. flavoring agents just mask it. no amount of money or effort could make it taste good.. so a "one note" cherry is as good as it gets.-- and thats not to good.
