Jelly Belly has four food scientists who concoct the 100+ flavors of jelly bean to match the original subject as closely as possible. At tasting sessions the candidate beans are sampled alongside the fruit, food, drink that they intend to mimic (presumably “barf” flavor was tested slightly differently). I doubt I was the first or only person to suggest pomegranate as a new flavor, but it is enlightening to see how much care they took to perfect it: “the group taste-tested juices and fruit from different regions, climates, and providers.” Perhaps all that research was parlayed into the pomegranate cosmos in their new cocktail flavor line.