The Worst Ramune Soda Tastes Disappointingly Artificial

We here at Tasting Table have some strong opinions about Ramune flavors. This soda is a pretty big nostalgia bomb for us, after all. It's probably not a surprise that when we taste-tested and ranked 12 different Ramune soda flavors, the Original Ramune came out the hands-down winner. As for the worst of all Ramune flavors? Unfortunately for lovers of peach candy everywhere, that label went to the overly saccharine peach flavor.

Even if you love peaches, you might find yourself balking at this. If you enjoy real peaches, stick to buying the actual fruit and taking a gander at these creative ideas to use them all up before they spoil. Unfortunately, artificial peach flavoring is just one of those hit or miss flavors that, to our taster, is more of a miss than a hit when it comes to this product. The artificial peach flavoring used in everything from gummy rings to soda doesn't taste anything at all like the actual fruit, kind of like how cherry cough syrup and actual cherries are worlds apart. In short: If you love actual peach flavor, this soda is going to be nothing but a disappointment.

This isn't the first time peach-flavored drinks have flopped hard with us. Jinro's peach soju also got low marks for the same reason: An overly artificial flavor profile (and a little too much of that alcoholic bite). But what exactly makes artificial peach taste so vastly different from the real deal? Well, that's all down to chemicals. Artificial fruit flavoring zeroes in on the most dominant chemical compounds of the fruit's original flavor, making it pretty one-dimensional. Many types of fruit candies have this problem. Have you ever eaten banana-flavored Laffy Taffy and thought "dang, that's a real banana right there"? Didn't think so.

While many people adore the super sweet notes of artificial peach (it sells ridiculously well in tons of Asian countries), it is an entirely different experience from a fresh peach. It might be more enjoyable if they just marketed it as its own unique flavor, since that wouldn't set a peach lover up for the disappointment of hoping for the delicate floral fruitiness of a peach, only to get socked in the tastebuds by chemical sugar. 

If you can only grab one Ramune flavor, always go with the Original. If you want to give peach a try for yourself anyway, though, you might as well. Even this worst Ramune soda is still pretty okay, after all. Just go in with the right expectations so you don't deal with a tragic peach-flavored letdown, and you'll be just fine.