Yes. Water matters, but usually not as much as the concentration of the solution. The reason you like coke from McDonald’s best is that there is more syrup in their mix. More sweet=better
@zenvelo – new coke was a specific formulation with more sweetener in it. It tasted like coke dressed as Pepsi, which was exactly the point. The sweeter Pepsi had been taking market share, and coke thought they needed to compete more directly. This time period was actually after the 5 year period from 1979–84 in which coke allowed bottlers to transition to corn syrup. Coca-cola had already been quietly altered before the fiasco of New Coke, though it did take the introduction of Classic before anyone really complained about corn syrup. The lesson they learned is not to advertise change, just change it and pretend like you didn’t. Many iconic brands have followed suit since, lowering costs by using cheaper ingredients, but never mentioning it outside of industry publications.