title says it all. do you just guess what flavors are in a juice and go from there?
Start with the description, see what flavors are listed. Taste it, see if you pick anything up that's not listed or if you can nail down certain flavors (I.e. cream could be any of dozens of cream flavors on the market). Smell the finished juice next to flavors you think it might be. Figure out which flavors are most prominent, and which play a supporting role. Bump up or down accordingly, and come up with a starter recipe. Do a little research and see if you can find which flavors the company uses, or if they've made public any special ingredients. Start the trial and error phase by mixing small bottles and compare to the original, what it's missing or what is too strong. Repeat until you're happy with it or you give up in defeat, hopefully the former.
Getting an exact recipe clone from taste alone is usually very difficult if not impossible. Speaking personally when I do this- My goal isn't to find the original recipe, but to create one that either emulates the things I like in the original or to hit as many of the same flavor notes as possible. Even with a bit of research or recognizing specific flavors, it will take time and effort(and usually buying 3 or 4 brands of the same single flavor several times).
I think this is the best answer. If you copy the flavor profile you're more likely to come up with something you like, even if it isn't the exact juice you wanted to make. Doesn't hurt to do a google search either and join forces with someone or find a good starting point.
I'll just throw my opinion in the ring. I've only got one successful clone posted out there so I'm 110% not an expert or anything close to it.
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One important step is flavor recognition and this comes with having a lot of flavors in your arsenal and then actually using those flavors. Over time you'll definitely get to know certain flavors and be able to distinguish between them. This is where most clone attempts start for me: "Whoa I definitely taste Capella Sweet Watermelon in there".
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After I have the flavor(s) that I recognize (or that come close to what I was tasting) I try to think of all the other flavors in the juice: Is it creamy? Is that a bit of vanilla I taste in there? Maybe I should check out vanilla cream flavors. I'm pretty sure I taste raspberry too". This is where the sniff testing begins.
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Sniff testing is next. If I'm pretty damn sure I tasted some raspberry in there I'll pull out the raspberry flavorings that I already have on hand and give them all a good long whiff and then compare their smell to the juice's smell. The flavorings we use for e-juice are fairly accurate based on smell alone.
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Once I have some flavors that I think might work I give them a whirl. This is honestly where the cloning process falls apart for me. I suck at making small batches and am just generally really inefficient - I tend to come up with percentages based solely on what the background/foreground notes in the juice are while also trying really hard to keep it under 15% total. Then I do a messy and poor job of mixing up a 10ml of what I would consider the "base" that I think should be fairly close. Usually it tastes like shit and nothing like the juice.
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Now I do small tweaks here and there. Okay, so the batch I made is completely missing the vanilla element and isn't nearly sweet enough. I'll add a couple drops of this other vanilla I've got and a tiny bit of sweetener to it and taste again. Make note of what you're adding. I often fail to do this and regret it every time. I also just use drops when tweaking - I'm not worried about being 100% accurate yet since I'm probably not even close at this point.
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Once I've done some tweaking and have gotten closer to what I want, I usually whip up a new small batch. I keep similar percentages/amounts to what I used in the final tweaks of the last batch, but this time I change up any incorrect flavors - for example, if the raspberry I used was totally the wrong one, I'll remake that last tweaked recipe with a different raspberry (starting off at lower percents in case it is way stronger than the one I was using) and go from there.
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Eventually I end up with something close. When this happens, I do some serious tweakage - I make several really small batches and change up percentages to try and get as close as possible. Eventually I'll come up with something close enough that I'm happy.
And here's a tip that I love and never see mentioned (but its so obvious): As I make different batches and test them, I like to (after a few puffs of the current batch) drip a little bit of the original right on top of the current batch. For some juices this can help you find "holes" in the juice. For example, I'm working on a clone of a Fruit Loops-type juice right now. My first attempt came out okay but was lacking in many areas. I dripped some of the original over top and suddenly I could pick out something similar to TFA Crunch Berries which I never noticed when vaping it before. So thats a new direction I'm going to try out.
Also keep in mind that you'll probably never get a 1:1 clone of a juice. When you make a clone you're usually just trying to get the flavor as close as possible.
Good luck! Hope that helps a little.
You don't wanna know...
I'm imagining that you swish them around in your mouth for a while and then this happens and then you suddenly know the exact ingredients and percentages you need.
