Vanilla caramel “tobacco” with notes of toasted almond. I’ve been chasing the cafe racer lucky 13 / lucky bastard RY4 profile. I can’t remember the original actually tasting anything like tobacco. It was just a pretty rich and satisfying RY4 profile. Working from sense memory here as I’ve not had the original for a few years.

This is a stripped back version; the original is said to have contained “13 flavours”. I’m not convinced about that. Although the versions I made with 13 flavours were delicious, I wanted to hit all the main notes with as few flavours as possible here. Like the original, this pairs beautifully with an IPA. My personal favourite pairing is the Gunpowder IPA by Innis & Gunn. But anything with Cascade or Citra hops will work well with this stuff.

Steep: works surprisingly well off the shake, but I’d suggest leaving it 4-5 days before digging in, as FA Ry4 does develop some interesting notes over time.

TL;DR if you bought FA RY4 and don’t know what to do with it, this is a good way to use it up.

Photo from the Rustbelt series by Kalie Frisky