In my other life, I taste things professionally. Because of this, I sometimes go down rabbit holes of information on obscure (and common) tastes, and how they come to be. I figured I'd share some of my knowledge on this for some of the more obscure flavours used in eliquids. Tell me if you like these kinds of posts and if you want more!
So one of my favourite candies from my youth was wintergreen certs and lifesavers. The kind you'd chew on and sparks would come out in the dark! This is no myth either - it's real. Mix wintergreen's active ingredient in dried form with sugar and it becomes a source of triboluminescence - it produces electricity!
Many people confuse wintergreen with mint. It is "mint like" on some levels, but it's not actually from the mint family, it's in the heath (heather) family of plants (blueberries are part of that same plant family!). If you grew up in the North East part of the US, Ontario, Quebec areas, you probably have seen it on your tramps through the woods in the fall. It has green leaves and red (edible) berries. I grew up in Ontario and I've harvested it - my Dad taught me how to recognize the plant when I was like 7 or 8. (I wish it could be found in the PNW, but I don't think it's native to here).
It's extremely popular in First Nations history; the leaves were brewed up in tea, which, because it was heated, gave it legit medicinal qualities. The main medicinal created via the leaves and the application of heat is methyl salicylate, an acid, which is also the metabolite of acetylsalicylic acid, aka aspirin! You can do it too - find some wintergreen, snip the leaves, brew up a tea and enjoy!
(sidenote - Wintergreen is a SLOW growing plant that was almost endangered from over harvesting in the wild; this is why you should never pull up the plant if harvesting, but just snip (with scissors if possible) a few leaves off each plant at most, and let it continue to grow!)
As mentioned above, people think wintergreen is mint, or a mix of mints. But it's so much more. The aroma alone from it is nothing like that found in the mint world. It's like getting a mellow menthol "hit" of air but mixed with rich woods and dry barks and roots. It's almost like a ghost of birch beer or root beer is hovering near the active mellow menthol you're smelling.
Thing is, wintergreen is also not menthol, but closely related. Methyl Salicylate is part of the Methyl group of chemicals, as is menthol (which is usually derived from peppermint or other mints in the mentha (get it!) family.
Besides the Certs and Lifesavers candies of our youth, where else do you find wintergreen? Gum of course, but it's also used in some toothpastes (esp. old school styles), and... beer! and... tobacco blends (pipe, chewing etc)! and... root beer! (see what I did there?). and... birch beer!
Think about wintergreen as grown up "mint" for those who are moving away from the sweets of youth and towards the balance between bitters, sweets, sours and salts. Wintergreen cools (hey man, it's used in Ben Gay!); wintergreen gives that mentholy feeling. But wintergreen also brings along a woodsy, seductive, hits your nose first with familiarity then cools your breath fun time that could be the hidden secret weapon in your next juice mix.
Suggested ideas for Wintergreen in your vape recipes:
- goes great with most tobaccos
- use as an alternative to koolada in a recipe
- chocolates
- If your recipe calls for something cool (menthol, mint, peppermint, spearmint yada yada) and some kind of woody note (Oak), use wintergreen instead of both
- blueberries (hey! They are family after all!)
I don't personally think it'll go well with creams and custards, but don't let that stop you. :D
My own rec on wintergreen is FlavorWest's. I have TPA (and also have Loranns, but do NOT use Loranns as it is an oil-based flavor), and love what FW have done to represent it. Even just opening the bottle brings back memories of my youth.
After thought - wintergreen (and esp. methyl salicylate) can be toxic to humans; you should never, ever drink the undiluted oils made from it directly; approximately 6-10ml of it can kill a human. In the flavours we buy for eliquids, the oils are much reduced via dilution, so you shouldn't be worried about adding a half ml to your e-liquid batches, but even in this diluted form, it is POTENT!). 5ml of pure methyl salicylate has the same "punch" as 23 300mg aspirins, as in, punch you dead.
All that said, there is ZERO worry about using wintergreen in your vapes; the active agent, methyl salicylate, is heavily diluted even in a concentrated flavour.
I've been a big fan of wintergreen tea for a long time, my mom would make it for us in the ... well winter. I can't believe I overlooked this one, Thank you for this!
I really like the story/background info in your post ... would gladly read more like it =)
Nice insights, and great to include the botanical segment.
I feel, as a recipe including wintergreen magic, this belongs here, too.
What is this "wintergreen magic" recipe you speak of? I've already tried the HIC bubble gum recipe you linked, just looking for other wintergreen recipes people may have
Vanillin, Wintergreen, Cinammon + Fruit. It is magic as the flavors intermingle to an extent where you cannot tell what is in the mix.
This is the thing I always try to tell people who are so "anti blend" in the coffee (espresso) world... sometimes, in a blend of coffees roasted and intended for espresso use, the sum is greater than the parts, and something entirely new on the taste map is created! One of my favourite things about food science!
That and how when a perfectly cooked steak is paired up with an amazing red wine - sip the wine, it tastes one way. Take a bite of the steak, sip the wine, it tastes different (and often better!)
Excellent. I would love more of these posts. I love wintergreen, but I haven't experimented with it in my juice yet. This post has me jonesin to try it out (especially with blueberry).
Thanks for taking the time to write this.
Glad you liked it! Please share any recipes you might come up with!
Will do! So, FW Wintergreen is the go-to? I'll add it to the ol' cart and hopefully purchase soon.
I just really like FW's version of it, though it's not actually wintergreen, but artificially sourced methyl salicylate. They seem to have found a really good balance with it, and the smell off the bottle reminds me of the tea I smelled when brewing it as a kid.
>but do NOT use Loranns as it is an oil-based flavor
Is this true for most (or all) Loranns extracts? I haven't really messed with their product line, but I do have a few bottles lying around. I think I actually called up the chemist at Wizard Labs to ask about it but I can't quite remember the answer I was given.
There is a site, cant remember the link right now, that lists the LA flavors and lets you know which are good to use. A quick search will find it for ya
I just generally stay away from all of Lorann's oil extracts line, but happily use their flavoring line. Early on in my DiY adventures, I was warned of that, so it stuck with me. I'd be great if there was a good resource online that says what of their lines can be vaped, and cannot. I see below someone said the info used to be online but is gone now.
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I did a bit of research awhile back when I was experimenting with some personal batches and somehow came to the conclusion that what I purchased was part of their flavoring line. I don't remember there being a clear distinction between their PG based flavors and oils, though. I think that's what prompted my original call to Wizard's head chemist.
I haven't used Lorann's extracts for any of the juices that I've made for other people, though. Would have to do way more research on their extracts before including it in anything official.
Thanks for the info!
This was great I just picked up some Wintergreen and I'm excited to get started on working on a recipe.
Please feel free to create more, it's very interesting to me!
INCREDIBLE write up /u/ilikeycoffee .
Please, please, PLEASE do more. I've paid for details not nearly the depth of your write up. Thank you so much for this and I really hope you keep this up. If this was in that magazine I'd pay for it in a heartbeat.
Thanks! Your encouragement and that of others in this post prompted me to fasttrack the next one I wanted to cover, Marshmallow!
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/3mrqoi/mallow_out_man_a_little_bit_on_marshmallow/
This was definitely an interesting read. I used to murder trees for a living, and always wondered why the smell of birch trees reminded me of wintergreen. Now I know.
Thanks mate. Coming from the guy who started this sub, I'm really glad you liked the read! :D
LOL don't get it twisted kiddo. that founder /u/kt00na right there is useless to us. sure he's a cool cat. but honestly I bet his recipe's (If he ever decides to make any...cause...he doesn't mix) would suck donkey dick balls.
oh shit!...I tagged him...I mean. Our Benevolent and glorious founder has graced you with his presence...uh...be grateful...and stuff.
Edit: But foreal, He makes me think of one of those shitty kings from medieval times XD I love it!
Wintergreen is my favorite ADV. I have both FW and TFA wintergreen, and literally cannot tell them apart, leading me to believe that they're both simply methyl salicylate solutions. Pretty sure I read a data sheet for at least one of them stating this.
Yeah thats all TFA's is made of, Flavor West doesn't have a msds sheet or I would check theirs. But to me FW smells and tastes just like the lifesaver candies if you add a little ethyl maltol. When I sampled TFA's it just seemed stronger and harsher to me for some reason. What wintergreen to do use instead?
Great info.
I love wintergreen. The certs were my favorite. I was hoping to find (create) the perfect recipe for it. I think I could vape wintergreen certs all day. I was hoping for a standalone, or with very little else added, for a real powerful vape. I want it to feel like I brushed my teeth. :-)
The health warning has me a little curious now.
Anyone mix wintergreen as a standalone? It will be my first mix ever, and I want it just right. I love powerful flavours. I have seen some recipes that add spearmint and koolada to wintergreen, and am unsure if, or why that is needed. I wonder as well how it is with or without a sweetener.
> The health warning has me a little curious now.
While I felt it was important to include the health warning at the end, from what I can tell, all the flavouring concentrates sold that we use for vaping are heavily diluted. I've smelled pure wintergreen extracted oils, and it's so much more potent than what you get in these bottles of flavourings. I haven't seen numbers (ie, FW is diluted down to 10% or 5% or whatever) and I'd love to find out those numbers, but my nose tells me it might be 10% or less.
> Anyone mix wintergreen as a standalone? It will be my first mix ever, and I want it just right. I love powerful flavours. I have seen some recipes that add spearmint and koolada to wintergreen, and am unsure if, or why that is needed. I wonder as well how it is with or without a sweetener.
I have vaped at 5% with 1% EM and it's quite nice. I have a few other recipes I've worked on, but I'm hoping people will post a few here that they come up with, uninfluenced by recipes I post.
Wintergreen is actually one of the ingredients in pink bubblegum. HeadinClouds has/had? a post about this on vaping underground but since he cleaned all his recipes out of there I haven't gone back to check on it.
Once I learned this I had a piece of original style bubblegum and damn if I couldn't taste the individual flavors
So... could one make it potent enough to be used as headache relief ?
I'm not a doctor, nor a chemist, nor a pharmacist, so I could not (and will not) recommend this. But I will say this - wintergreen tea made from leaves does help relieve (in a milder way) much of the same things aspirin does. I've experienced this first hand.
Thank you for this information! I actually love Wintergreen candy and gum. Question for you though: On an off note, are Wintergreen essential oils deadly since they are direct extracts? Sorry if they is a dumb question but I'm into aromatherapy and using essential oils for their healing properties.
From what I understand, wintergreen when used in aromatherapy (ie, those water things that emit vapor) is perfectly fine since you're releasing it into the air and its ppm is greatly reduced because of ambient air, the process, etc. Again, I'm not a chemist or doctor, but you get a similar effect just holding your nose over the steeping tea from wintergreen tea brewing, (in fact, it's one of the enjoyable aspects of brewing wintergreen tea), and no one's ever been harmed by that. AFAIK, it's only direct, undiluted ingestion of the extract oils that is cause for harm.
So if this doTerra Essential Oil is ingested in high enough amounts it's lethal? It claims to be direct extract and not diluted from my understanding.
doTERRA Wintergreen Essential Oil
|||| --:|:--|:-- Current|$11.45|Amazon (3rd Party New) High|$17.60|Amazon (3rd Party New) Low|$8.00|Amazon (3rd Party New) |Average|$16.24|30 Day
Personally, I would not use that in a vaping recipe. That's meant for aromatherapy use (straight) and baking use (with a carrier oil), and physical pain relieve (ie rubbing on your skin till you get numb) Even handling that stuff straight will lead to problems if you get too much oil on your hand. I'd stick to the vape flavour companies' products. Just my advice.
smells like vicks, can't vape it at all... i have a 4OZ TFA bottle that is still about 99.9% full, been on the shelf for about a year.