I'm committed to only using natural flavors, even trying to extract my own, but there are some juices out there that are so f'ing delicious I just want to experiment with stuff i can't generate on my own.
I love the high roller and five pawns flavors, obviously, and some of the villianous vapors stuff; and I'd like to get the same kind of quality in my own blends. With all of the different flavor companies out there, I don't know how to make sure I'm getting the best possible flavors. Where do those companies source their flavors? Do they extract their own? How can I achieve that level of quality?
Some may make their own extracts, but usually only tobaccos or maybe some spices.
As for where they get their flavors... The Perfumers Apprentice, Capella's, Flavor West, Flavour Art, Inawera, Nature's Finest, Olympia, and Silver Cloud. Basically all of the same places we do. Some vendors are better at certain flavors than others. It more so comes down to their recipes than anything else. Some are more complex than others, but all have taken time and tweaking to get right.
As an example, all of /u/lollerwaffle's mixes are 100% TFA. TVC uses flavors from TFA(primarily), Flavor West and Silver Cloud. No clue as to Five Pawns. The Standard is primarily TFA and Flavor West, from what I've heard.
Editing to add some other flavor vendors:
Faeries Finest, Hangsen... There are a LOT of smaller flavor vendors out there. It can be daunting to order from all of them, many don't have anything on their sites about being good for ecig use though. Some even try to distance themselves as well. And many of the smaller places don't normally have smaller sample sizes available to purchase.
Edit 2 - I misremembered the one vendor TVC uses, updated.
Do you have a link or a place that sells olympia? I'd like to check them out
Actually, Olympia is one I haven't been able to track down the easiest. And I misremembered the 3rd vendor TVC uses. Wasn't Olympia but Silver Cloud.
http://www.silvercloudestates.com
I might try another vendor as well soon, but TBH TPA gives me a giant boner with their fab data sheets.
I'll add my 2 cents. Flavorart and inawera both have very real tasting fruit flavors. Inawera is very strong so little is need. Flavorart also does amazing creams
Edit: forgot to add in an article I read on Five pawns they do alot of their own extracts and have an aging process including an oak charred barrel for some if not all of their flavors
Do you remember which of their ingredients they do extracts for? Fruits have too much sugar in them short of using pretty much a full on still to produce. Tobaccos and spices though....
I seem to recall reading that they extract their own vanilla, for example - you can get different variations of it, and they name the kinds they use in their flavor profiles, like Madagascar vanilla bean, and French vanilla.
Having recently mixed a Gambit clone that's seriously close to the real thing, I think that the missing ingredient is a "spiciness" to it that the clone is lacking, and that could easily come from one of the ingredients being hand-extracted.
talked to a premium juice distributor today who works with five pawns, Suicide bunny, and many others. they all use flavor west, TFa, capellas, nothing i hadnt heard of before. its just a nice label on something you COULD HAVE come up with on your own but didnt. it all comes down to the recipe. theres millions of combinations.