What's that ingredient doing in there?

Recently, I've been appalled by what I've found in a couple items in my cabinets, so I thought it's worth a thread.
Please refrain from mentioning HFCS, trans fats, pink slime... the point of this is not to gross out or encourage healthy eating, it's more to educate where manufacturers done me wrong.

#1 Goya brand Jamaican Style Ginger Beer
I bought this at America's Market's close-out sale (I basically bought at least one of every ginger beer, it's my current obsession). I found the ingredient list here.

Goya wrote:INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup 55, Ginger Flavorings, Oil Of Ginger, Caramel Color, Capsicum, Citric Acid.

Capsicum? Ginger has a spicy bite on its own, and is a good foil for spicy food. I don't want my lips burning afterward, though. Just nasty.
Pangleheimer's has the same effect, won't be buying that again either.

#2 Girl Scout Cookies Trefoil "Old Fashioned" Shortbread
Shortbreads are among my favorite cookies, the sheer butteriness, crisp crumbling, or soaked in milk (yes, I'm a dunker -- it's why I don't care much for Thin Mints, they've been waterproofed)

Girl Scouts wrote:INGREDIENTS: Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate [vitamin B1], riboflavin [vitamin B2], folic acid), soybean and palm oil, sugar, contains two percent or less of brown sugar, (sugar, molasses), sweetened condensed milk (condensed milk, sugar), dried buttermilk, salt, natural and artificial flavor, baking soda, soy lecithin

No wonder there's so little butteriness to these: there's no butter. I'm a little surprised by the brown sugar, no problem with the artificial flavor (I'm guessing vanillin -- there's not enough butter flavor for it to be diacetyl) or soy lecithin... but there's no butter, only soy and palm oils. A little dried buttermilk and sweetened condensed milk, it's not the same as butter.

This copycat recipe includes butter, every shortbread recipe I've ever made includes butter as one of the major ingredients. You could say that shortbread is just enough flour to make it so you can pick up the butter without it melting in your fingers. This is just shameful. Another product I won't be buying again.

Capsicum? Ginger has a spicy bite on its own, and is a good foil for spicy food

Ginger has a spicy bite, but I'd bet ginger flavorings probably do not, so the capsicum is there to fill in for the spicy/hot note.

Pangelheimer's is fantastic. Delicious with a twist of ow.