Let me start out by saying that this was originally meant to be a clone of Coolcumber Melon by The Vapor Chef. It's my SO's favorite juice and they were itching for me to make a juice close enough to satisfactory.

I not only managed to wildly succeed, but I took it to the next level. Keep in mind this has taken all of two nights of fiddling, but I am generally good with adding flavors on-the-fly and going by my nose (I do the same thing when spicing a dish). I originally whipped up a recipe close to a Coolcumber Melon clone, heat steeped it for an hour, and vaped it. It was close, but no cigar.

In my first rendition, I used a cucumber and a mint separately along with honeydew, pineapple, watermelon, guava, and koolada. I also had Cucumber Mint by FW on hand to try and after trying the first version I was convinced this was the main driving component of the recipe. I removed the cucumber and mint and used the cucumber mint flavor by itself and upped every other flavor by 0.5%. I smelled it and compared it to the original and it was still missing... something.

TFA Dragonfruit is a bit of a magic-pill of mine when it comes to my fruit juices. Something magical and science-y about it blends in and brings out fruit flavors. It is what helped my strawberry realize its full potential and while I didn't originally think it belonged, I added a drop. Just a drop. The smell change was subtle, but it was there. I added in my ethyl maltol (another staple of mine, I like what it does for teh cloudz) and a drop of sour to help boost the fruits. I almost stopped and called it good, but in a stroke of inspiration I added a drop of Inawera Cactus.

When I originally smelled the Cactus flavor, I wasn't sure what I would ever do with it, maybe an aloe-vera juice someday. The recommendation was to add it to banana, but I haven't tried that yet. When I added that drop and swirled it around, the flavors popped and sang in all the right proportions. It was weird, honestly. I didn't think it could make THAT big of a difference, but it did. I myself have only been mixing just under two months and have yet to have that true a-ha! moment that makes a juice smell like something I would pay good money to have. I'm honestly a little surprised I achieved that status with this recipe over my banana and strawberry juices that I've spent more time tweaking. I'm close with those two, but this juice is done. I don't feel any adjustments could improve it. That being said, I am a novice and could likely be wrong and I am more than open to suggestion. If anyone makes what they feel is an improvement, I am all ears.

It looks like a lot, and it is, but it is a labor of love. I found you can easily sub different brands for the honeydew, pineapple, guava, and watermelon with minimal difference, I simply prefer the ones below. It can also be made without the sour, dragonfruit, cactus, and ethyl maltol to make a decent vape, but those serve to round out the recipe and make it great.

Ingredient|%| :--|:--| Cucumber Mint (FW)| 6| Honeydew (TPA)| 3| Golden Pineapple (CAP)| 2| Double Watermelon (Cap)| 1| Guava (TFA)| 1| Koolada 10% (TFA)| 1| Ethyl Maltol 5% (NN)| 0.5| Cactus (INW)| 0.33| Dragonfruit (TFA)| 0.33| Sour (TFA)| 0.33|

EDIT: I forgot to add a warning that this juice does hit a little hard in the chest and it's hard to take huge hits of if you're used to soft, smooth flavors. It seems to be the nature of the beast because Coolcumber Melon is the same way.