RY14

July's Challenge: Strip a recipe or idea down to the bare minimum, but still saturate it to the point of poignancy.

For this month's challenge, I took the idea quite literally. Sure, there's all sorts of crazy abstract stuff I could try, but that's not really my style, so I leave that to the pros. If you're on the sub, you know I'm fresh off tasting every RY4 I could find with @nowar. Plenty of them were serviceable, but none really hit the spot. What they did leave me wanting was a better representation of the profile, something I could sit down with and enjoy next to a nice scotch at night. I'm a huge fan of big, peated, smokey scotch, so a nice tobacco with caramel and vanilla would really be the perfect compliment for me. I really thought this one would be easier, as I knew exactly where I wanted to go with this. Boy was I wrong.

I could ramble on here about every version and change I made but neither you nor I have the time for that. Here's the thought process and the cliff notes: I love FA Soho, to the point that I could bathe in it. I wanted to use that as the base of the recipe because I thought it was perfect for this application. The other thing I really wanted to use was OSDIY Lucky Shot. I bought it after hearing about it on Noted, and have really just been procrastinating using it, so here was my chance. Given this month's challenge, I limited myself to those two and one other flavor for a total of 3 flavors max to get the job done.

I started out with FA Soho, OSDIY Lucky Shot, and INW Shisha Vanilla. Four different versions of that couldn't get me where I wanted to be so I subbed out the INW, and added TPA RY4x2 to bolster the tobacco. It did that, but I just didn't like how it played with the Soho and Lucky Shot, so I scrapped that idea too. 8 versions in and I decided to try one without the Lucky Shot. I threw that out, and went with Soho, FA Caramel, and INW Shisha Vanilla. Not bad, but it just wasn't there for me. I couldn't get my beloved Soho across the finish line, it just lacked the chops for this application and sometimes you've just gotta know when to hold em, and when to fold em. For those keeping score at home, we're on version 10. Out went the Soho and in came OSD RJ4, which has a more substantial tobacco note and a dark caramel flavor. This was a step in the right direction, but not there yet. Back out went the FA Caramel, and I brought back in the Lucky Shot. Now we were getting somewhere, but it lacked the poignancy that the challenge called for. I needed that third flavor to be something that could bring a lot to the table, and I landed on WF Vanilla Ruyan Custard. It had the flavor I wanted, plus a custard bonus to help smooth and meld it all together. From there, it was a few versions of playing with the percentages because I overestimated how much Lucky Shot I needed in the mix.

14 versions later, here we stand. I think it can be improved on yet, but I stand by this being limited to three flavors and I'm pretty happy with what these three were able to make. It's sweet and rich, with noticeable accents of all three profiles in an RY4, plus a touch of custard as a bonus. It does require a two week steep for that dark caramel in the OSDIY RJ4 to calm down and the custard to perk up, but once you get there, I think it's worth it.