Is Blue Raspberry a Real Fruit? Where does it come from?

*Before you read know that everything found on the internet is in italic


If you've read my profile you will know I have one of those random questions, which is something alone the lines of: 'Why Do They Have The Flavor Blue Raspberry?'  I answered this:  'A question I often ask myself'.  Now, dear reader you may have thought I was trying to be funny.  In this case you are wrong.  I was quite happy to see this question since it was something I often thought myself.  So I decided to find some answers.  I googled: 'Blue Raspberry'. after that I went into images.  I was surprised to find many picture of blue Raspberry's:

But my search did not end here.  Oh no.  The next thing I googled was: 'Is blue raspberry a real fruit?'  And it led me to yahoo answers (I know it's not the most reliable website, but I decided to give it a chance).  This is what I got:

Is Blue raspberry a real fruit?

or is it some hybrid flavour?
and if it is a real fruit where does it grow?

• 3 years ago
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Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

It is not a real fruit. It it an artificial flavor. Here is more information.

"Blue raspberry is a common flavor for syrups, candies, and other food items.

It is derived from the juices of the Rubus leucodermis plant, otherwise known as the whitebark raspberry.

The artificial blue raspberry flavor, originally derived from blue whitebark raspberry fruit juice, became an artificial designer product in the late 1950s.[1] The flavor is described as somewhere between tangy and sour. It is often accompanied with blue food coloring; the coloring of blue raspberry also helps it to be differentiated from strawberry flavored drinks. The use of food coloring often dyes the mouth blue temporarily.
 

So after reading this I needed to figure out what this 'white bark raspberry' is.  So I decided on yet another trip to google images.

Was this the plant blue raspberry comes from?  I needed to know more about this 'Rubus leucodermis'  So I searched it and some information appeared right on google:

Rubus leucodermis

Rubus leucodermis is a species of Rubus native to western North America, from British Columbia, Canada south to California, New Mexico and Mexico. It is closely related to the eastern black raspberry Rubus occidentalis. Wikipedia

Scientific name: Rubus leucodermis Rank: Species Higher classification: Rubus Subgenus Idaeobatus

Hmm this doesn't say anything about blue raspberry.  I had to keep searching.  Next, I googled 'is Rubus leucodermis the plant behind blue raspberry flavoring?' and it took me to wikipedia.  The article was titled 'Blue Raspberry flavor'.  Here I'll show you it:

.

Blue raspberry flavor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blue raspberry is a common flavoring for candy, snack foods, sweet syrups and soft drinks. It is more commonly used in the United States, as a sweet flavoring. The flavor originates from Rubus leucodermis, more commonly known as the "Whitebark Raspberry" or "Blue Raspberry" for the blue-black color of its fruit.^[1]

Well I think we can call it official.  Blue Raspberry flavor comes from the Rubus leucodermis plant.

  Do you have any questions you want to know the real answers to?  You can comment them if you want to and I will try and give you the answers like I did today.