I hate maraschino cherries with every ounce of my being. It's the cherry flavor they use in most cherry candy and children's cough/cold medicine, and you're supposed to like it. So my mother would give it to me when I already expressed that I didn't like it. It tasted vile.

Fast forward some years, and I'm in the bar with my bartender friend/coworker, doing inventory. We get to maraschino cherries, and I'm like huh, these look like tasty fruit in a syrupy glaze. No way they taste bad. Pop one, and not only is it vile, it literally made me feel physically ill until I got that godforsaken flavor out of my mouth. That's how I realized that people who make children's medicine must just hate children. And that that is where the flavor in cherry flavored candy and medicine comes from.

I didn't realize real, fresh cherries actually taste nothing like maraschino cherries till I tried them closer to 30. I sincerely hope the person that invented maraschino cherries is resting in hell for all eternity now.