Apple has never been my flavor of choice although I love eating apples. Weird how that works. I wasn't sure about this flavor but it's awesome. All the important pitfalls were missed. It's not jolly rancher apple, there isn't an abundance of cinnamon, and it doesn't taste like a glazed donut.
The core of this flavor is a vibrant apple cider. Some weirdly delicious amalgamation of apple cider, apple juice, and the gooey innards of a Dutch apple pie. It's rich and savory while holding true to a baked apple flavor. There is some spice that adds to the cider and apple pie aspect but it's just the right balance. The spice isn't the star. It's that apple.
As for the funnel cake. Well no funnel cake flavor I've ever tried has made me say "yep thats funnel cake". It just doesn't have that unmistakable funnel cake flavor. However, similarly is does have a light sweet dough-like flavor in the background. Enough that this is unmistakably a bakery type of flavor. To me this tastes most similar to an apple fritter like you'd grab from a good donut shop. And by most similar I mean almost exactly.
This is a solid flavor from AECo and one definitely worth giving a shot. It's definitely up there in quality along side some of best apple flavors I've tried like $100 Apple Pie.