******************** Note: this is NOT SC Cohiba. It is FM Tobacco Bastards Cohiba **************************************************

FM Cohiba is a strong cigar even at 3% (recommended use on the website is much higher). It gives a gritty mouth and is almost too authentic for me. So i decided to soften it a bit with vanilla for pipe and a little sweetness from ry4 double. Still very much cigar forward, it has a strong vanilla note with a sweeter finish. This was an attempt to make this flavor work after a poorly planned initial sft at 10% that had me ill like i vaped a real cigar. Designed, developed and approved by Frank, my barber, who said, "It's the bomb". Frank's a good guy and he likes cigars.

Tested mtl

Mixer's Club April Submission - April Fool's: make a tasty vape with one odd ingredient - FLV Arabian

I originally wanted to use LB WCPM to make an odd vape with tobacco. That ended up being a delightful ADV for me that I had no need for feedback on. So when it came submission time for this entry I was out of fresh ideas that I wanted to pursue (and test various failures of). So, I saw some notes scrawled on a post-it note by my computer and I remembered a mix that worked with an idea I had a while back to use FLV Arabian as an accent note to a bakery of some sort.

I have been really lazy mixing during Covid, mostly spending the time doing tests and write ups at the computer over the busy life I generally lead where I can make some tests and not have a chance to vape it until 3-4 weeks later when I next have time. Needed a quick mix one day and decided to try Kokanda's Sick AF. I like SC and MnH so why the hell not? I was struck off the shake how sweet it was and it didnt have a strong singular note that stood out on top of that sugar. I figured this would be a great base to play with and i probably over-complicated it with a couple of flavors I knew would pull it where I wanted. To top it all off, I added a few drops of Arabian and so v0 was born. The current recipe as it stands is a bit pared down. I am currently in love with WF HnC with tobacco thanks to Tesla DelMar and so I opted to leave out the MnH from the original mix. SC could probably go higher if I wanted a prominent 'cookie' vibe, but I didn't. I wanted it to be in this nether region between sweet and spicy, tobacco and bakery, sugar and cream. I chose WF Caramel Butter over FM or FA Caramel or an RY4 because I wanted it to play to the cookie vibe, HnC because good but also to add that nutty creaminess to blend the bacco to the cookie. Decided to see if I can bend the spice notes of Arabian just a bit with a touch of Cardamom. For me, 0.5 is about right but here I'm going for an indistinct blend of warm subtle spice. This is a new addition and I know Cardamom works but not sure if it will poke through enough at 0.15, but fuck it, let's try it. It is taking the place of FW Hazelnut which was there to boost the nut and overall vibe, I just felt it wasnt needed opting for SV for mouthfeel and to match that ry4 vibe. The Cardamom should add to the overall flavor, blend in nicely but also remain a distinct, warm spice that plays both sides tobacco and bakery while highlighting the Arabian spice notes. Not like me to play it light touch and, if anything, I am proud of my restraint.

Do mind the steep. I haven't actually pinned down when it gets best, 2 weeks is a minimum guess, 3 probably better.

Thanks to the support of the gang in MC for being such a cool group and always encouraging me to try new things!

Santa chillin after a long night. This is what his ass vapes.

So, this started out as trying to find a way to use a flavor I really enjoy, LB WCPM. Solo up to 10-12, it delivers flavor, a very sweet, seriously minty, lightly chocolatey vibe. I decided to try to keep this as high as possible and to try to accent it with as little as possible. The first attempt was wcpm 12 / ct shade 1.5 / choc deutch 1.5 and I really enjoyed what was happening. Eventually I sorted it out to wcpm 11 / ct shade 1.25 / CD 0.75. What you get there is a reaaaaaly sweet mintiness that has a dark musky undertone of cocoa tobacco wrapper and a slight choc coconut finish. I liked it and decided to try to balance it all a bit better. I was testing ry4's and got kind of bored and dripped a little of the early version on after and realized it was a much deeper, fuller flavor with the ry4 in there. At first I thought, why not just use the FE with some mint and make a minty caramel until I realized I had the work all done right here and tested the v1 with some FE in it. The flavor, while 'good' and kind of 'what i wanted' just didnt seem to make sense to keep the WCPM so high. It worked fine supa high as a featured flavor with minor accents but it wasn't quite jelling here. Tried a few percentages and settled on this combo as a nice compromise.

This is like a chocolate andes style mint with some caramel to mellow it out. Best after 6 days, but totally SnV for me.
Some notes: This version is the most "tobacco-y" version of these flavors that I liked. I was intentionally trying to use the WCPM as a feature but bring it down enough to where the tobacco is prominent. I had my friend, fieldgreens, send me some feedback and he got a lot of leaf out of it. I vape tobaccos nearly all day, so I don't even notice it. If that's you and you want a non tobacco version of this, I would say the three main flavors work together pretty well: WCPM, CD and CT Shade. So, if you're set on trying it but a tobacco newbie, give WCPM 8-10 / CD 0.75-1 / CT 0.25-0.5 a whirl. Or sub in a less tobacco-y RY like JF/MB/FA

WCPM - A very interesting flavor with a really pleasant mint and a really wide range of % for use. I've taken it up to 12 and it can get sickly sweet but the white chocolate doesnt get offensive, just a little too creamy and in your face. At 7.5, that's the lowest I could get it here and still have it be 'minty' but I can see it used as an accent even lower. Early versions had it much higher and when I want it sweet, I dial it up to 10. (currently vaping a version at 10 as I type).

Choc Deutch - A really nice chocolate with hints of coconut. Early versions had me using this over 1% and that coconut finish was good, just I found it distracting and aimed for lower just to have that add to the creaminess of the white chocolate rather than as its own accent. If you want this sweeter, more chocolate-y, dial it up to 1.25/1.5 max ime and you get a prominent flavor out of it.

CT Shade - Touted as a cigar leafy wrapper, famous for being a bully in a mix, generally used at 0.25-0.5 as an accent in mixes. at 0.25 it's ruined mixes for me. Here at 1.25, it brings those strong hints of cocoa and coffee while still bringing that leafiness and making this an unusual tobacco vape. There's really no filler bacco so all that chocolate and sweet don't let my mind register it as a tobacco mix. I'm also used to it, so it doesnt stand out to me here. The other flavors stand up to it quite well imo

FE Ry4 - I chose this based on tests that gave me a dry leafy almost spicy vibe. I didn't want something wetter or too caramelly. I've tried other RY4's as a sub here and without. I think I like this as a bridge between the white and dark chocolates from the WCPM and the CD so it stayed put in the final recipe.

Adaptions:
- The distinct coconut finish that was there with a higher CD is now not there so if you want that, crank that up to 1-1.5
- The mint is mellowed so if you want full on, you can increase the WCPM the same amount you decrease the RY4 or it'll be crack your teeth sweet. Or add some yourself. I imagine Arctic winter in low percents will work with a bit of a steep. ymmv
- You can probably sub the ry4 for another. FE is a bit 'drier' and 'leafier' to me. Fit really well with the mix and the shade specifically. They kind of melded and made the shade notes less distinctly prominent, turning that tobacco base into something much more akin to brown richness.
- Should note that after two weeks the baccos are more prominent so if you dont like that, make only as much as you will vape in a week or bump up the WCPM a bit.

I can see doing a zillion things with this and, likely, probably will. Enjoy, don't be afraid to adapt, comment, or trash it.

safety note: FLV CD is on the Avoid list. idgaf :)

Mixer's Club Submission March 2020: Blue in a bottle of Milk

I had an idea to start with... Blackberry cigar with a hint of milk chocolate. I bumped into AlfredPudding in the MC server and asked him if he wanted to add a submission and I would graciously mix it up for him. He ended up jumping in as a collaboration on the concept and swapped out some flavors for others, suggested some percents and this mix was born. I got pretty busy, so i didnt get a chance to really mess with percents. I really didnt need to. After about two weeks, I felt the tobaccos were still a bit soft and wanted to bump them up. Never got to trying it, and glad I didn't. At about three weeks, they all slide together to make something that is just really interesting to vape. So, i don't know, make of it what you will.

It's nicely balanced, with the tobaccos just laying in the cut providing a base for the rest of the flavorful components. Blackberry at 1.25 blends harmoniously with the berry-like components of Black Cat for Pipe, Dates adds the depth to the dark fruity undertones in Dark for Pipe, and lavender all but dissolves into the mix lightening it up in a strangely delightful way; it's nearly impossible for me to discern it individually. It turned out to be very interesting to me and I hope you like it.

Edit: I kinda threw up the notes quick for MC but wanted to make it clear, Alfred steered me away from the chocolate and brought in the lavender and red dates which make this a unique mix. It's more his than mine and now it's yours. If you try it, I can guarantee it will be worth the wait. And please do wait. The tobaccos end up being very delicate in the mix and need time to level out. Definitely a steeper.

Mixer's Club Theme: Try something new. This is definitely new for me. I wanted to make a mix using those specific flavors to create one profile that wasn't exactly cereal, not quite the berry forward, not too sweet, semi floral. It was more about getting these components to work in a mix that going for any specific real thing.

B- For the berry i went with the daveberry trinity scaled down by a third. It sticks out distinctly as a berry here without dominating the mix.
W- The wheat here is both flv wheat and jf biscuit. wheat brings an almost floral wheat note that biscuit fills in with a sweeter, lightly flaky body. I tried some RF Baked Bread sc but it was a little overpowering and i didn't feel like it was adding to the profile. I got wf frosted puff cereal and wanted to try it in here but it came too late. Im happy with where this is at anyway because I struggled to get a solid almond note I wanted.
A - for the almond I used FA almond. I searched high and low in my drawer for wf almond cookie to see if i could use this in place of jf biscuit but also boost out the almond. Never did find it. I tried a little FA marzipan but it didnt make any noticable difference for me so I left it out. Just kept dialing this up until I liked where it was just under the wheat.
H - I tried flv honey bee for the honey. It was too floral without enough sweet. Decided to give vt a run here. It has a bit of wiggle room between 2-3 % but I definitely wanted it to be both the bulk of the sweet and the almond wheat bowtie.

I think what came out was interesting and not too bad. Hope you like it. outside my wheelhouse so any criticism, suggested flavors, just 'give up' comments are welcome. :)

Been playing with some cavendish and different tobaccos/sweeteners to make mixes that have fallen on the range between straight tobacco and something smoother and sweeter. This combination was developed for an mtl rta and never tested outside of that. I imagine DTL would add more nuance which would likely bring out more complex tobacco notes and sweetness so some adjustments could be made depending on your tastes.

This comes across as a slightly sweet, dark flavored pipe tobacco with some emphasis on the tobacco and a hint of nuttiness to balance the sweet.

Baccos: hs ry1 provides the bulk of the bacco as a kind of neutral ciggie type flavor which gets slightly bent towards the more pipe feel with cavendish. At 0.5%, cavendish adds sweet syrupy pipe darkness without any ash or spice notes. Any higher than 0.5 and that part gets more intense and I wouldn’t take it higher than 0.75-1 if you wanted more of that here.

Additives: Arabian adds a distinctive nuttiness and body to the baccos. It settles down a bit by day 3 but is fairly prominent nonetheless. m&h provides a boost for the sweet and can be reduced for less sweetness particularly if you add more cavendish. I’d drop by 0.25 for every 0.1 of cavendish added if that’s your game. Smooth vanilla is intense at 0.2 so I use one drop (approximately 0.2) per 30ml because I’m too lazy to make a dilution. It’s a subtle amount here that needs about 3 days to come forward. I’ve found 0.02g/10ml to be a bold ass vanilla that needs at least several days to settle, 0.02g/15ml for a strong distinctive vanilla to settle in a few and 0.02g/30ml for the vanilla to creep in after a few days. As this is mostly snv (3 days) I stick with one drop per 30ml and I like it that way.

As always, there’s room to play here. You can sub out hs ry1 for a variety of baccos for different results. Flv Turkish at 1.5 for more spiced notes is my second choice. M&h can probably be subbed for something suitably sweet or even sweet cig at 0.5-1. Vanilla of choice at appropriate amounts. Smooth has some body so I’d probably stay with inw shisha before any others but I can see most any other working if you want some variety.

This one is good as is and is mostly balanced out by day 3. If you try it, I hope you enjoy it. If you change it, let me know because I am always tweaking and like how the parts here can be altered to keep it fresh.

Edit 5/3/20: This was made just as HHG v1 was going out of production. If you have v1, you wont be disappointed in this one.

The theme for mixer's club was Duets. I decided to take my love for Cardinal and try to see if I could get more tobacco out of it. My problem with Cardinal was always that it was just never enough tobacco flavor. So I decided to try it with Brigade 2506 by @ChemicalBurnVictim as like a peanut butter and jelly tobacco blend.

The results were strange. I first just lifted the holy holy grail ry4 and mixed it with BFP and TA CC. That wasn't working so I added back in everything on both recipes until I had a straight mash up of the two. For one tester, I just threw in some Am4a on a whim at 1%. for some reason that mix worked better than the others. The two recipes needed a bridge to pull them together and I'm guessing that the slightly creamy Am4a was able to bridge that gap between the caramelly HHG and the darker brigade flavorings.

Based on feedback from @ID10-T, I experimented with the levels of Am4a to get it right. I sent him some samples to try with Am4a at 0/0.3/0.5/0.7/0.9% His feedback being that the Am4a stood out too prominently at 1.0 and I was inclined to agree. Testing at various levels we both agreed that 0.5/0.7 were indistinguishable.

So, here it is at the 11th hour as Holy Holy Grail Ry4 v1 fades into diy history... Sacrilege (Amped brigade 2506)

Additional notes:
- I do like the 0.9 version as well. It leans more to that creamy bacco side than a mash-up and you can try that out too if you like more bacco and dont mind the distraction.
- just want to take a moment to thank the Mixer's club for encouragement and feedback and to ID10-T for helping me to get the levels perfect and trying out some samples to nail it down.

A group effort from @NordicFlavors @staybert myself and final edits by @ID10-T.

An attempt at a ginger rum lime drink built around TPA Ginger Ale. Not the best way to go since ginger ale has a heavy vanilla cream going on that is not hidden at this high a percentage. It's good, but a cleaner ginger drink built around FLV Ginger is probably in the future... until then, here is a solid balanced drink that gives you an excuse to use your Gingers

Stixx mixx tobaccos are (to me) lovely yet soft and delicate in flavor. They somehow manage to defy description as well. The flavors are smooth at even higher percentages and whenever I complain about the 'lack of flavor' and switch to other brands, I am always struck by how heavy handed they seem. If you are considering trying a NET, I like this mix.

Honduran Liguero from SM: "a great, smooth shag flavor. Lighly [sic] sweet, and very very smooth. Excellent standalone, or with dark berries" It's definitely a medium tobacco flavor with darker notes, not very woodsy but a great mouthfeel and fullness that I could totally see getting behind some darker berries.

So I decided to try it with FLV Acai. It blends in nicely. The strange funkiness of Acai doesn't show through here but the slight berry with chocolate notes blends in perfectly. The softness of the NET leaves room for the chocolatey hints to be forward enough without making it seem like a dessert tobacco and the berry aspect gets fuller from the natural sweetness of the tobacco. I've also tried to add some more berries and at 5% the bacco couldn't hold up. it instantly became a berry vape with a slight bacco back. upon further testing of HL at 10%, I'm convinced that for a more complex berry vape, one would have to go towards the higher suggested end of the range. I tried VT bilberry ripe with the Acai and just got super jammy, I tried another one I forget and was pretty ready to just let it go until now that I realized that HL needs to be much higher to provide balance.

This one was ADV for me for a few months and I don't really do that. Nothing legendary, but a solid mix that is light enough of a flavor to not tire out your tongue and also provides some complexity. If you are looking for ideas, I hope you like or improve on it.

My take on an Arnold Palmer updated with a smoother mix and less angst. While originally created as a concept mix, I did actually enjoy it. This is an updated version largely improved and yet different from original in many profound ways. It is a reimagining of life after being focused on problems, this here is the solution.

Main Note:
INW Plum/FA BC - Not very many recipes use Plum, but I loved its dryness, yet it was just a hair short of full. Plum to me is a bit thin at 1 and at 2 it's at it's limit. I wanted to give it a deeper fruity vibe and sweeten it up so I went with FA Black Cherry, and a touch of FW Sweetener.

Base:
FA Black Tea/VT Lemonade Clear/VT Sour lemon - This combo was used to create a lighter tea feel and a less sweet lemonade base to fit the dryness of the fruit. FA BT can probably be bumped up a bit if you want more tea out of it or maybe add a support with something less intense/more forgiving.

Accents:

FLV Yakima Hops/Pink Guava/INW Cactus - This adds some very slight funk to the whole mix that at these low levels adds just a hint of tropical funk and wetness. It folds under the rest quite nicely to me.

(Optional) Coolant:
FA Polar blast - I also mix this with Polar Blast at 0.4%,