What is bubblegum flavor?

Everyone knows what bubblegum tastes like.  Or at least a lot of people.  Ok, a lot of Americans.  Anyway, we've all* tasted the ice cream, or the cotton candy, or chewed the gum itself.  But what, exactly, is it?

Turns out, nobody really seems to know.  All right, that's not quite true.  I mean, the people at Hubba Bubba presumably know, right?  And Wrigley.  And a bunch of others.  But each of these has their own proprietary combination of flavorings, and no one's talking.  It's a little bit like the formula for Coke-- we can make a few guesses as to some of the obvious components, but the exact proportions and some of the minor additives we can only guess at.

So here's what we do know.  Ethyl methylphenylglycidate is one of the flavors.  That's a common artificial "strawberry" flavoring.  It does not appear to be in actual strawberries, but it is fruity and berry-y and the government has classified it as Generally Regarded As Safe.

Another compound is isoamyl acetate, also known as isopentyl acetate.  This is another common flavoring, generally used as an artificial banana flavoring, although it reportedly also tastes a bit like pear.  It's dead simple and cheap to make-- I'm pretty sure it's the stuff we cooked up in high school in AP Chemistry.  Unlike the strawberry flavoring, it is an actual component of real bananas, although in the actual fruit it's only one part of a much larger collection of naturally occurring chemicals.

There are some other likely components-- most versions probably contain vanilla (or more likely vanillin), as well as methyl salicylate (wintergreen-ish), and of course some sort of sweetener (sugar, HFCS, stevia, whatever).  But the exact formulas remain a mystery.

*as previously disclaimed