IPA Smoke

Preface: I'm using the word "dank" a lot in this write up. I do not mean the meme, 1v1 me bitch, 360 no-scope, doritos and mountain dew version of dank. I mean the way dank is used to explain the earthy, slightly bitter, and bright flavours found in an IPA. Okay, cool.

A crisp IPA, a light cigarette, the subtle undertone of sadness and ash. Sounds like a good night to me.

I've been chasing this profile for something close to 4 months now. It started off as an attempt to just make Yakima Hops work well as a base for an IPA style beer, with citrus fruit notes and crisp brightness. However, as I continued on this path, I decided to up the ante a bit and try to incorporate the taste of a cigarette in there, because really, what's better than a cigarette with your beer? There were many iterations of this recipe, some worked, some were disgusting, but each attempt brought me closer to this end result, and I genuinely don't think this one needs any more tinkering. Things can always be improved upon, yes, but this just works as it is, and I truly believe this might be the most intriguing, complex, and batshit crazy recipe I've ever attempted. Let's dive into the notes.

THE BEER

FLV Yakima Hops / FA Lime Tahity Cold Pressed - so to preface this, FLV Yakima Hops IS beer. Even on it's own, just smell it. It's dank, hoppy, and overall reminds me of a IPA, a pretty light and simple IPA, but a beer nonetheless. For this recipe, I've played around with countless percentages on this concentrate and was hard-pressed to find something that didn't work. Of course, if you just slam 10% of this shit into a recipe, it's not gonna work, but anywhere between the 1.25 - 2.5% range is going to give you some really tasty hop notes. Going higher and you get really earthy with it, which may work for your application, for here, it did not. So 1.5% gave us a suggestion of a beer to work with and play off of. To push this generalize IPA flavour into a full fledged, crisp, citrusy IPA, I had tried a few different things. First was INW Lime, far too potent. Even just a few drops obliterated all notes of hop and beer, and turned it into a weird earthy lime flavour. Next up was FLV Pink Guava, which I genuinely thought was going to be the choice, giving us some tropical vibes, some notes of grapefruit, and that super bright citrus hit. However, just like INW Lime, it was just too strong. As the recipe steeped, I kept losing some of the more subtle intricacies of the recipe as a whole. I hadn't used FA LTCP in a long time, and this recipe seemed like as good of time as any to try it again. It works so well. It doesn't turn this into a Lime IPA, it just turns the citrus and hop notes in Yakima Hops up to 11, giving us a super dank, somewhat New England style IPA, mouthfeel and all.

THE CIGARETTE

FLV Sweet Cigarette / FLV Kentucky Blend - once again, this recipe had a few different iterations for each element, and the cigarette is no exception. While we have no shortage of delicious tobacco flavours nowadays, we do still seem to have some trouble really bringing home that cigarette profile. Either it ends up being too much of a cigar, too much of a true tobacco, or too much like straight campfire in your mouth. While I'm not going to sit here saying I've cracked the code, I think this recipe does hit the notes of dry tobacco and smoke in a very gentle way, not assaulting your senses too heavily and crushing out the citrus and beer notes. FLV Sweet Cigarette gives us a nice base of light tobacco. As the name suggests, this definitely is on the sweeter side of tobacco options, and there is definitely some interesting things going on when it blends together with everything else. The sweetness here helps counter against some of the more earthy tones from Yakima Hops, while the tobacco still sits in the background, instead of forcing its way to the top. Kentucky Blend is here to add that smoke. This is a very potent concentrate with some great notes of ash and deep, woodsy tobacco. Keeping it under 1% just gives us the good things, without taking over everything else. As you can probably see, this recipe was ALL about balance, for almost all of these flavours are incredibly powerful on their own, and can easily overpower the others.

THE ACCENTS

FLV Pucker / FLV Lovage - so FLV Pucker is one of the newer options from FLV, and I had the benefit to receive some during its beta testing, and for the longest time, I had no fucking idea what to do with it. Single flavour testing this was a motherfucker, for I had no idea if it was supposed to be like a sour additive, a tobacco additive, or just some single flavour that really missed the mark. Turns out, it's honestly a strange amalgamation of all three. This has enough complexity to be impressive, but it's got such a strange light flavour that's almost indescribable. Kinda tart, kinda sweet, kinda earthy, kinda gross. Somehow, this works here as a bridge between the tobacco and the beer. It adds some generalized tart flavour that keeps the beer from just tasting like a beer with a lime slice thrown in, and gives some extra punch to it. The subtle earthiness plays nicely to make that IPA feel more dank and believable, while adding a bit more authenticity to the cigarette. Finally, FLV Lovage. My new favourite thing to add to all tobaccos. It's slightly vegetal, slightly dirty, and overall something special. This shit is THICK. Shake the ever living fuck out of it before you add it to a recipe, and for the love of science, keep it low in a recipe. I literally use two drops for a 30ml bottle. Low and slow, that's how to bend Lovage into something other than dirt and plants. In very small doses, this concentrate gives us even more authenticity to the profile. That's what these additives were used for in this recipe, just giving more suggestion of reality on two profiles that you really shouldn't be able to recreate in the form of an e-liquid. But the vegetal notes from Lovage add more depth and complexity to the cigarette, while the earthy dirtiness of it keeps the beer notes from feeling too artificial and fake.

STEEP TIME

Well, this shit shouldn't be a shake and vape, but it is. Granted, it's going to take about a week to fully blend together and allow some of the flavours to really come to light, but it works off the shake. My favourite thing about this recipe is that it evolves over time. After a day or two of steeping, the beer notes become more powerful, more interesting, and more flavourful. After a week, the cigarette morphs into something more ashy and delicious. And if you leave it for a month, it's somehow just a full punch in the mouth of everything good about this recipe cranked to the max.

So do you remember how proud of Drunken Pears I have been over the last few years? Yeah, this is the true successor to that recipe. This is the next monumental recipe for my resume. If you mix this one, I truly hope you enjoy. If you don't, that's cool too, just know you're wrong.

My name is Cokecan, king of trash; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!