You know me, I go in blind and figure it out as I go. This works for me for now, so we'll see if I can't improve upon it later. Knowing me, this will be average at best until I hit version 26, so do what you want with this shitpost.
Basic idea was to work with a bunch of ambiguous flavors in order to create something reminiscent of a white gummy bear soda. It's on the way there. Notes below.
CAP Silverline 27 Bears - this shit is interesting. I've played around with it a bunch in the last two weeks I've had it, and there's a lot you can do with it. Low percentages just gives a candy citrus note, while the higher it's pushed, the more we get a sort of "white gummy bear" suggestion. It's moderately smooth, pretty low on the chemical taste (good job Capella, you gave us an all in one candy that doesn't taste like the piss from a Chernobyl victim), and has some nice mixed fruit flavor. It's still very citrus/pineapple forward, but there's hints of everything in here. At 4%, it holds weight in the mix as the gummy bear base.
TPA Dragonfruit / INW Dragonfruit - so to play off the pineapple notes of a white gummy bear, without actually using a pineapple flavor, TPA Dragonfruit is the way to go. I find that a lot of the pineapple options really overpower any mix that they're in, so I wanted to accentuate that profile without obliterating the mix. TPA Dragonfruit has some really nice ambiguity to it as you push it's limits. Instead of using it here as a way to bind flavors together or accent other flavors, it's actually being used to add to the citrus/pineapple profile. Using INW Dragonfruit provides us with a bit more body and depth, as that flavor is significantly more "realistic." With that, we get some mouthfeel, a little bit of suggested creaminess, which is crucial to preventing this recipe from just being akin to licking a car battery.
VT Fizzy Sherbet / FW Beetle Juice - so these two work together nicely to create our soda base. VT Fizzy Sherbet is a delicious lemon-lime soda profile, feels oddly similar to if you added Sprite or 7-Up to some sort of fruit punch. While it isn't simply a lemon-lime soda, it definitely gives us a bit of bite and, well, fizziness to the recipe. FW Beetle Juice is here to fill in the gaps and provide a little extra full fruit flavor to prevent the onslaught of pineapple and citrus. I've found in previous recipes that FW Beetle Juice does a great job at filling in the gaps and adding some depth to TPA Dragonfruit, and that's exactly what it's doing here. If anything, I believe we can push this even higher in future attempts, while dialing back a bit on the Dragonfruit(s)/27 Bears.
CAP Super Sweet - I've seen the light last year, and 2019 is no exception. In recipes like this, adding some Super Sweet helps round out some of the harsh edges. Adjust percentage to your own preference, but this seems like a mix that really could benefit from even more sweetener. We'll see.
OPTIONAL - WS-23 - I made the recipe, and it's a fruity one, so obviously I'm adding 0.75% WS-23. You don't need to, but a little bit of this will definitely add to the "soda" aspect of the mix.
Alright, do what you want with this. I needed something new to vape, and this does what I needed. You all already know I dial in 95% of the shit that I post on here, so don't take it too seriously.
In a slightly intoxicated state on night, I figured a strawberry cigarette was a good idea.
When I woke up the next morning, I realized it WAS a good idea. This is a simple mix that somehow has loads of complexity. Notes below.
THE CIGARETTE
FLV Kentucky Blend/FLV Virginia Tobacco - After months of testing different tobaccos to create IPA Smoke, I realized that these two work really well together to create a pseudo-cigarette profile. The Kentucky Blend is earthy, dark, dirty, and deep. It has smokey notes in it, some subtle sweetness, but overall, it's just a delicious dark pipe tobacco that really gives some "ash" on the back end after a few days of steeping. Virginia Tobacco, is light and dry. It has more of that light cigarette tobacco feel to it. There's some bitterness that plays really nicely with the sweetness of Kentucky Blend. In this mix, using Virginia Tobacco at a higher percentage helps fight the overt sweetness we get from the strawberry and brown sugar. Back in college, I made a friend that rolled his own cigarettes using a blend of cherry pipe tobacco with some full bodied cigarette tobacco. I fell in love with those smokes. To me, the mix of FLV Kentucky Blend with FLV Virginia Tobacco is almost a perfect emulation of those cigarettes I used to bum from him.
THE STRAWBERRY
INW Shisha Strawberry/TPA Brown Sugar - When working with profiles like tobaccos, custards, ice creams, etc, I've found that INW Shisha Strawberry works incredibly well. I typically rock the FA Strawberry/CAP Sweet Strawberry combination when I'm creating full fruit profiles. But in this mix, using that combination was pretty disgusting. Which isn't too surprising. Who wants a candied strawberry profile with a dirty cigarette? Probably no one. Or maybe a fucking coward. Who knows. But with INW Shisha Strawberry, we get a nice blend of a deep, slightly overripe, authentic strawberry with a touch of sweetness. I've read before that mixing INW Shisha Strawberry with things like caramel and dark sugar doesn't really work. While that may be true for typical application, we can see that this is not your standard strawberry recipe. In this, the addition of TPA Brown Sugar not only amplifies the nuances within the tobaccos, but also nearly exaggerates the overripe sweetness of the strawberry.
STEEP TIME
Shake and vape is definitely good, but after 3 days, the strawberries and tobaccos blend together into something special. Before the steep, the two stay fairly separate, but after a few days, they meld together and we get, truly, a strawberry cigarette.
This is a weird profile, I admit. It's strange, not an ADV by any stretch of the imagination. However, I find myself constantly wanting it for a few hits. It's really odd, really tasty, and a good way for ya boy to start off 2019.
Loosely inspired by one of the first e-liquids I was hooked on, loosely an attempt to create something "commercial," mainly just something because evidently I really don't like mixing bakery stuff anymore. This is a pretty simple mix, but it's really enjoyable. Notes below, but they'll be short and sweet.
THE WATERMELON
(FA Watermelon, FLV Watermelon, FLV Wild Melon)
I've been using FA watermelon for my melon note for a long time, but I always found it to be a little too subtle and "realistic" for a mix. I didn't realize that I even had FLV Watermelon, but upon smelling the bottle, I realized this would add that candied and artificial watermelon that was needed. Anything over 2% with FLV Watermelon tends to get a little harsh and offensive, but around 1.5, paired with FA's option, it's really fucking pleasant. Add that touch of FLV Wild Melon, and you've got a nice, fully fleshed profile that has some real depth and punch to it.
THE STRAWBERRY
(FA Strawberry, TPA Strawberry Ripe)
Well, fuck me I guess. I have been pairing FA Strawberry and CAP Sweet Strawberry for so long, that I forgot about what TPA Straw Ripe can do to a mix. This combo provides us with a back-note of strawberry that doesn't overpower the watermelon, but adds some juicy backbone to it. I've found that lately, any mix that I use my normal FA/CAP combo on, it just ends up being a strawberry forward mix with accents of whatever else I had in there. This combination, at this percent, allows the strawberries to stay in back to support our melons.
THE OTHERS
(CAP Super Sweet/WS-23)
You already know what these are for. I don't normally like adding sweetener, but given that I was going for a more commercial idea here, I added two drops to a 20ml, and it's perfect. Brings some extra brightness to the fruits, while giving a little more mouthfeel overall. Just sweetness, obviously, but it's the right amount. WS-23 can be used to your liking, but 1% is a little too much, 0.5 - 0.75% will be perfect and not mute the fruits in the mix with ice.
No need to steep, just mix up, shake up, and enjoy. I've been gone for a while, I hope you fuckers missed me.
"Since I Hate the State That Reddit Is In, I Figured I Would Post Something to Piss Everyone Off"
Remember when pop punk bands used to write songs that had excessively long song titles like that? Yeah, I guess I'm bringing it back.
Anyway, I'm not gonna do a super in depth breakdown of this, because it's pretty obvious how it works, but I'll do a proper flavour note documentation on reddit here in a little bit. This is just what it seems to be, a slightly tart and bright strawberry recipe. I was initially going for a candied strawberry soda profile, but it wasn't working out, so I went for a more tart strawberry, and that worked nicely. I'll post both of these, because I did a version that works really nicely in pod devices as well. Enjoy.
A little test in creating something that isn't based on anything else, just working with a mess of bright and full flavoured concentrates. Furthermore, this is one of the best recipes I've created that has a real sense of customization to it. Change percentages, add other things, omit certain things, and you'll be left with something good because of how accepting and versatile FW Beetle Juice can be. I implore you to create your own versions of this and share it, I'd love to see what you can make.
FW Beetle Juice - I've used this one a lot before, but usually as an accent to give other fruits a boost. Here, I'm using it as one of the main profiles, because it's a rather complex standalone that ALMOST doesn't need help to be tasty for a new mixer. However, Beetle Juice is crazy with the top note, where you get a whole lot of punch to the tastebuds, but not a lot of lingering body. This is sweet as hell, with the main flavours noticed being some sweet pineapple, maybe a little bit of generalized citrus, and maybe a touch of grape. However, I've seen countless reviews that suggest cherry, orange, and lime. Hence this being the cheat code needed for CaptainCannibal's SHURB clone, an epic saga of a man losing grip with reality over the span of over a year (I believe). Anyway, this is the type of concentrate that no one can really explain correctly, as it has so much going on, that you as the user just need to try it and formulate your own opinion. However, it's damn good, and worth having if you like fruit vapes. For me, as I said, it works wonderfully as our base for this fruit disaster I've created.
TPA Dragonfruit - given that I pick up a lot of sweet pineapple in FW Beetle Juice, using TPA Dragonfruit at 3% just made sense. For dragonfruit shares a lot of the same flavour volatile components to other pineapple concentrates on the market, this allows that pineapple note to become almost more of a super sweet, candied pineapple. TPA Dragonfruit is also used here to act as an emulsifier for the other fruits seen. We already know how well this works to brighten up the strawberries in a mix, and here, it's brightening up everything, and helping Beetle Juice have more body to it.
CAP Juicy Orange / FA Lime Tahity Cold Press - with all of the sweetness going on, we need some counterpoint of citrus that will prevent this from becoming too cloying, however, using the correct citrus is key, as we don't want to make this a tart recipe, but just give some relief from all the sugary goodness. CAP Juicy Orange is perfect for this, as it's got a lot of brightness and the slightest underlying tartness that you get from a typical navel orange. I've used this concentrate whenever I want to create a true orange juice base, and it works perfect here to give that added bit of sweetness, but more importantly, a much needed punch of orange/citrus tang. Paired with just a touch of FA Lime Tahiti CP, we're getting just the slightest hint of lime on the back end, and it helps round out all of the sweetness you get hit with on the top. LTCP is quite versatile, as well. In low doses, you can achieve a nice lime zest/splash of lime juice note, while when you bring it to higher percentages, you get a bit more of a candied lime type of flavour. Play around with this one, see what you like.
CAP Sweet Strawberry - giving us some more juicy/candied accents here, CAP Sweet Strawberry fully rounds out this recipe that's better called a fucked up science experiment of fruits. We aren't getting too much strawberry flavour that is noticeable, instead we're getting just more body that allows this recipe to stand on it's own, even though it isn't trying to be anything in particular. Sweet Strawberry can be used at high percentages to get a true strawberry flavour, but when it's used lower, it adds candied fruit elements and an added touch of sugar. Paired with the pineapple notes, citrus notes, and general mess of candy going on here, CAP Sweet Strawberry just blends it all together, and adds just a kiss of mascerated strawberry flavour.
CAP Super Sweet - OPTIONAL AS FUCK MY DUDE. You already know how I feel about sweeteners, but if you don't, let me educate you. Sweeteners do not fix a recipe. They do not make a shit recipe suddenly taste good. If you don't already have a good recipe, then don't even touch sweetener. Any sweetener is only going to make a good recipe taste slightly better, and here, we get just that. I don't really know if I'm using exactly 0.25%, but I'm mainly adding 2 drops per 30 ml, and just that little bit gives the most pleasant "sugar-lips" accent at the tail end of the vape. You don't need it, however, I think it really does amplify the flavours of this mix.
So that's it. This recipe is great on a shake, and changes over time. I had one bottle sit for over a week, and to be honest, it doesn't taste as good after a week. So mix it in small batches, enjoy it immediately, and move on. After about a week, I was getting a lot of medicinal grape/cherry notes from the FW Beetle Juice that kind of negated a lot of the bright sweetness you get from the shake.
Like I said, mix up your own versions of this. It's very user-friendly, and I truly believe that unless you tried to make this some sort of tobacco or floral profile, you really can't fuck it up. But y'all motherfuckers love to make shit difficult, so maybe you can.
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!
I've never had Placid by Adirondack, however, I know what the flavour profile is supposed to be. Here's a really simple and quick take on that profile. A strawberry, pear, honeysuckle vape. Please keep in mind that INW Lime is very potent, I typically only use 1-2 drops per 30ml depending on how lime-y I want that particular bottle to be.
I might add flavour notes later on, but for now, this is really good as is, and everything really blends together after about 3 days. Hope you enjoy, and if you've had Placid before, let me know if I'm even remotely close to whatever that juice is supposed to taste like.