Hi, and thanks for choosing my cake! (Mine is the Tiffany Butterfly cutting cake and cupcakes - the other photo is by a fellow- Australian girl by the name of "Hello Naomi" on flickr)
Both photos are of rolled fondant.
Luckily, here in Australia, our fondant actually tastes pretty nice, but we do have some doozies (but nothing as bad as Wilton!) The best pro-product is Bakels Pettince, with Orchard second. We can also get Satin Ice on ocassion; I haven't used it, but I understand it's not too bad, as fondants go.
You can both colour and flavour rolled and poured fondants successfully with alcohol-based products, but you may need to knead in additional sugar to the rolled fondant, or add less simple syrup to poured fondant, in order to counter the addition of liquids.
Fondant is great to play with - you can achieve some incredible results s- have fun and good luck with it!