Camp Tigerclaw

An accessible and dead simple green apple hard candy for people used to paying way more for juice. The fancy label and booth babes are in your mind.

Special shoutout to Flavorah and Liquid Barn for putting together the DIY Extravaganza at the Vegas Vape Expo. Mixers were breaking down DIY for attendees. This recipe was my attempt to create a quick, tasty, and "commercial" vape juice right in front of people on the fence about trying DIY.

As a "simple" juice, this is mostly about bolstering a single flavor into a fuller vape. Luckily, CAP Green Apple Hard Candy really doesn't need all that much help. It's a green apple jolly rancher, full stop. I don't get any of the acetone off-notes present in a lot of green apple concentrates here. It's almost perfect for a sweet, sticky and slighty warm hard candy vape. It's a simple profile, but executed really well. This recipe was specifically formulated to 16% to work with the liquid barn basic bottles, so the 12% is a bit arbitrary, but it works well there.

FLV Sour Apple brings in some support. It's another green apple candy flavor, but it isn't quite as full and sweet. The "Sour" part is pretty great though, and it just provides a bit of punch to keep the jolly rancher from building into something too sticky and cloying. Most "sours" aren't all that tart and the malic acid will gradually eat at the flavors underneath, hollowing out your juice. FLV Sour Apple doesn't seem to mute nearly as bad over the long term, and it really helps to set off the CAP. 3% of this flavor is a lot, but we're not in overflavoring territory and the CAP GAHC soaks it all up.

And Capella Super Sweet, well, it's a sweetener. The acids there seem to help further enliven candies and this is pretty much the perfect place for it. 1% is a bit high for a DIY recipe, but it's still on the low end for "commercial" stuff. It's also a candy recipe, soooooooooo..... But whatever, use as much or as little as you like. It's DIY. If Super Sweet is a bit harsh for you, then try FW Sweetener at 2 or even 3% for a comparable level of sweetness. This isn't the recipe for TPA or EM, and the muting with those options is probably detrimental with any kind of steep. I feel like you actually want a bit of bite with all that sweetness.

Can you add cooling? Yes, it's DIY. The recipe will work fine with it. Stick with a neutral coolant instead of something like menthol. I like .5% of 30% WS-23. You can go as cold as you want though. 1% will be "icy." 2% will be brutal. Again, it's DIY.

So there you go, this was actually relatively popular with the people I talked to, and I hope it's a pretty good illustration of how easy DIY can be if you stay out of the way of the flavors and just want to vape something that tastes good. For just 2 flavors and some sweetener, you get a good balance of sweetness, tartness, and depth of flavor. The level of flavor may be a bit obnoxious, but that's the point. You could make this more complex or less overwhelming, but I wanted to target an audience of people that were not already invested in the community.

I'll get back to 10 flavor existential nightmares soon enough, but I thought this might be worth sharing. As much as I enjoy the nerdier side of mixing, the show was a good reminder that DIY can be a bigger tent and I need to do something to help make it one.

Also, Shyndo came up with the name. I'm not sure if the DIY snobs or the juice line goons are Camp Tigerclaw in this scenario, but it's a cool ass name and sometimes that is enough. BIG TENT.