Look, I know it and you all know it: Synthetic cherry flavor tends to be among the best synthetic flavors. Few gummies can match the juicy mass-produced flavor of cherry gummies, right?
And I mean—Cherry Coke? That was the 16 ounces you got when you were a kid with a free afternoon and $1.09 to drop. You were the kid in the neighborhood if you had a Cherry Coke.
Scientists understand this—they know how critical the U.S.'s artificial cherry infrastructure is to national security. And thankfully they are on it:
Researchers have been trying to capture authentic cherry flavor for decades. Now, according to a press release sent to The Takeout, the Purdue team thinks they've cracked the code. The researchers published their work in Nature Communications, outlining the ways they identified the "molecular recipe" for one of the key compounds in that authentic cherry flavor: benzaldehyde.
[The compound] exists in cherry pits and stems, and it's also found in almond oil. Per the Purdue release, benzaldehyde is "key to some of the most popular flavors including cherry, almond and raspberry." The researchers point out that it's "second only to vanillin in terms of economic value to the food industry." Now, the Perdue researchers think they've figured out how to replicate it in a lab setting.
How did this Nobel-level team of researchers crack this code? By turning to an unlikely source: Bees! Bees, as you know, love the taste of Cherry Coke. In fact bees have been humanity's main competition for cherry flavor for many hundreds of years.
So it only made sense that scientists turned to our enemy in order to strengthen ourselves:
"Benzaldehyde attracts pollinators and, in addition to [fruits like cherries], it is found in other plants, including petunias," Dudareva said. By carefully analyzing the petunia flowers, the researchers were able to denote the gene sequence necessary to create that signature benzaldehyde flavor. Now, they'll likely transfer that pathway to yeast or other microbes. That way, they can incorporate it into the "fermentation process widely used in food and beverage production," the release explains.
An unlimited supply of cherry flavoring? No more relying on Russia for our cherry flavor needs? You know what this means, don't you?
Of course you do:
Summer 2022 will be the Summer of the Cherry Sno-Cone, baby! It's coming!
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