So, Fallout 4 came out this past week. Being as it's a game I've been waiting 7 years for, I was kinda obsessing about it before the release, so I decided to funnel some of that energy into developing something to vape while gaming. And, frankly, the first thing I thought of when I think of Fallout flavors is Nuka-Cola.
Background
For people who haven't played the games, Fallout takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. The alternate history it takes place in had a 1950s retro futuristic world before the bombs fell, and left a radioactive wasteland behind. There're a number of food knockoff analogs, such as Cram, which is a ham product in a can.
Nuka-Cola is the Coca-Cola of the wasteland. So much was produced prior to the bombs falling that 200 years into the apocalypse, it's still stupidly common in all of its' varieties.
Flavor Research
So, I was left to the task of researching a fictional flavor meant to evoke the flavor of Coke. Which should be relatively simple, right? I mean, just whip up some Cola and some EM, and should be done, right?
Except I'm sadly a completionist and I've played all of the Fallout games. I recalled some tidbit about the passion fruit shortage of 2044 clearly altering the taste of normal Nuka-Cola, to the point that the general populace noticed. Which seemed odd, if it's just a variety of Cola. So I started doing some research at a Fallout wiki, and found out that Nuka-Cola is not just a Cola, but includes a blend of 17 different fruits. Which...I don't think I even have 17 fruits in my flavor stash, but anyway, the point is it clearly has a fruity note to it.
The Experiments
So, because of the massive number of flavors, I thought to myself, hey, why not have a ton of flavors, amirite? Nothing can go wrong with that, right? Right?
Ingredient|% :---|---: 10% Ethyl Maltol Solution|2 Cola (INAWERA)|3 Dragonfruit (TPA)|2 Juicy Peach (TPA)|2 Orange Cream (TPA)|2 Strawberry (TPA)|2 Lemon Sol (TPA)|2 Green Apple (TPA)|2 French Vanilla (TPA)|2
Flavor total: 17%
This...this was such a mess. It didn't have a bad flavor, per say, but it had such a strong, strong cinnamon red hot flavor, coupled with a weirdly fake generic fruit flavor. I was actually so concerned about the Cinnamon flavor that I made a stand-alone Cola flavor, due to that being the only flavor batch I hadn't used before this recipe, in case I accidentally got a cinnamon flavor. But, nope, just normal Cola. So there's some interaction that creates one of the weirdest flavors I've ever had.
I clearly need a change. Maybe instead of going for a ton of flavors, I can go for just a nice fruit flavor with Cola. Something to smooth everything out would help, too.
Ingredient|% :---|---: 10% Ethyl Maltol Solution|2 Cola (INAWERA)|3 Dragonfruit (TPA)|2 Juicy Peach (TPA)|2 Orange (FW)|1 Strawberry (TPA)|2 Vanilla Swirl (TPA)|2
Flavor total: 14%
Much closer, but something weird happened here. I'm not always the best at tasting vanilla. It doesn't always taste like pepper, like it does for some people, but usually it's light if ever there.
It seemed like the only thing I could taste in this recipe was vanilla. It was almost the most vanilla recipe I've ever made, and I'm not sure why. It tasted like someone poured some fruit juice into a bottle with Coke, realized their mistake, emptied it out, and without rinsing it, poured in some vanilla soda. Would've been good, if the cola flavor wasn't at the right concentration to be just a little stomach-churning.
So, my mission is clear. Drop the vanilla. Maybe tweak the fruit a little to make the Cola more prominant.
The Final Recipe
Ingredient|% :---|---: 10% Ethyl Maltol Solution|1 Cola (INAWERA)|4 Dragonfruit (TPA)|2 Juicy Peach (TPA)|1 Orange (FW)|1 Strawberry (TPA)|1
Flavor total: 10%
Remember to rate it at e-liquid-recipes.com!
This seems just about perfect. Tastes like a Coke from one of those Coke freestyle machines that allow you to pick your own flavor, with a variety of fruit flavors, but Coke front and center. I ended up dropping the single-fruit flavors to 1, but kept Dragonfruit at 2 due to it covering a number of bases. I also dropped EM to 1, to keep it from overly muting the flavors, and bumped Cola up just a little, to make it a more prominant note.
I've also been thinking of some other things I could add. Nuka-Cola Cherry was a New Coke-style failure, hence the name Nuka-Cola Classic, whereas Nuka-Cola Quantum was a glowing variant which had pomegranite added to it. I imagine either of these could be created by dropping the Dragonfruit to 1% and adding ~3% of the desired flavor to it, depending on manufacturer. I've also thought about attempting a meta flavor for Nuka Cola, by creating the Berry Lemonade flavor of Jones Soda that was released as Nuka-Cola by Target for the release.
This has been my ADV since Fallout 4 came out. I'm so glad I made this, since it let me really dive into the process of creating a new recipe.
That's odd about the strength of vanilla in your 2nd attempt. Dragonfruit, juicy peach, and strawberry all share a flavor component (undecalactone) that could be boosting the vanilla swirl.
Its not necessarily Cherry Nuka-Cola, but this sold well when soda flavors were popular; Decent as a shake a vape, but gets better with even a few days. Add additional EM up to .5% to taste.
Cherry Coke
Ingredient|% :---|---: Black Cherry 1.04 (TPA)|2.25 Citric Acid 10% 1.01|0.2 Cola (FA)|3.25 Ethyl Maltol 10%|0.2 Red Cola (Hangsen)|0.5
Flavor total: 6.4%
you sir. have won a one way ticket to my heart.
2 of my favorite things in the world. and you combined them. mixing, and fallout.
seriously though. fallout4 should have come out 3 months from now. I'm so busy getting this business up and going but because I waited for this game since fallout3 came out, I have been refusing to just go to bed instead of playing...and I am one tired cookie. LOVE this game
Can I ask how much health it restores, and how many RAD I'll take?
+3 hit points every second for 10 seconds
+2 action points every second for 10 seconds
+3 Radiation per exhale
-25% Accuracy in VATS
Cloud Chaser
Rank | Requirements | Description ---------|----------|---------- 1 | End 4 | Smoke 'em out! Your vape sessions now last 50% longer and the VATS penalty is reduced by 15%. 2 | End 4, LVL 18 | Health and AP per second doubles, and vaping no longer has a VATS penalty.
Where do the rads come from, isn't it diketone-free? ;)
I love those freestyle coke machines but they are a pain. The old style soda fountains may not have held as many flavors but it was far faster to mix many flavors together. I'm 42 years old and I still make 'swamp water' whenever I get the chance!
All that being said, I think I'll try and mix some up but I'll replace the INW Cola with FA and find a substitute for Peach - maybe apricot :)
Making this tonight except I have no orange. Have tpa pear, multiple strawberries, cap blueberry, cap lemon lime (i think), and cap golden pineapple. Any suggestions ?
TPA Pear is a weird taste to me. When I was trying to narrow down which fruits to include, Pear got tossed out pretty early. It's just never seemed to be a great mixer to me, but your mileage may vary. I'd also skip on more strawberry or any blueberry, and the TPA Dragonfruit has a nice pineapple undertone to it, amongst other things.
If you're going to replace the Orange, I'd definitely try replacing it with the Lemon Lime. Each of the fruits in the final mix ended up fulfilling some duty that contributes to the fruitiness. Strawberry is the sweet berry, Peach is the fleshy juice, Dragonfruit is the exotic body, and Orange is the citrus tang. I ended up going light on it because I've found that FW Orange tends to overpower things very quickly, hence why the other three are at 2% and it's at 1%.
Lemon Lime should help cover the Citrus Tang aspect of it. I'd go 1% or 2%, or compromise at 1.5%.
Think this would be worth trying with FA Cola? Dont have INW and not ordering flavors any time soon :(
I'd say go for it.
The thing about using the Cola flavors with this is that it doesn't have to taste like Coke. I don't think the Inawera flavor tastes exactly like Coke, but it's supposed to be a fictional drink, so it doesn't have to. Whatever Cola flavor you enjoy/have and plays well with the other flavors can be your own Nuka-Cola. :)
I'm pretty sure passion fruit is an important ingredient in the recipe, since the flavor of Nuka Cola drastically changed after the great passion fruit famine
While the taste changed due to the lack of passion fruit, I doubt people noticed passion fruit lacking. If anything, a lack of passion fruit threw off the 17 flavor fruit blend in Nuka-Cola, resulting in an altered taste profile.
It's kinda like if there was a massive shortage of the herb Sage, and suddenly KFC chicken tasted different. You're not eating it going "Hm, this's clearly missing Sage", it's just different. It's only by connecting the dots to a shortage of Sage would you even realize they might have something to do with each other.
First off, thank you for the recipe.
Tried brewing up 500ml of this yesterday. Got a little impatient (as I usually do) and wanted to try it and it's literally the harshest juice I've ever tried. I don't reckon any amount of steeping will help this, the mixture is so thin especially as I did it as 80vg. OP have you had anything similar happen to you while you were experimenting? Just trying to figure out where I went wrong, at first I thought I might have done 80pg but after double checking this wasn't the case.
Ah well, hopefully more steeping will do the trick.
That sounds extremely odd. Would you say it's about as thin as normal PG is?
I generally mix my juice at 40pg/60vg with 100% PG Nic. It's come out about the same consistency as my other mixes. The only time I haven't is when I made the small stand-alone Cola batch to test it, which was 5ml at 50/50.
Assuming you checked the other standard stuff(If other juices were doing it, shook your nic, et cetera), I'm not sure what to tell you.
Thanks for replying OP.
As with most problems here, steeping resolves all! I waited another day to try again and it's a thousand times better. I'm assuming that the flavourings had risen to the top at the time I first tried it out haha, it ripped my throat to shreds. It's odd as I usually have a cheeky test a day after doing a mixture and it's never been that bad before. It's being left alone for a week now.
Thanks again.
Okay soooo... New to DIYing juice and I don't have a cola flavour but I'm playing fallout 4 and really really really wanted to try this.
So I made do. No, I didn't sub something out for the cola.... I threw the other flavours into a BIG glass of Coke (4x drops for this recipe) and damn. DAAAYYUUMM.
Thank you for this wondrous experience my friend. Now to order that damned cola flavour, if it's anything like this, I need it!
Can I but this from you? I don't wanna mess it up myself lol plus I don't have any flavors :/
PM me!
Edit: thanks for the down votes? I guess asking to buy something is wrong here because I don't have the flavors. Thanks reddit.
Asking for premade juice on this subreddit is a faux pas. If you can't make it yourself, there are websites that will sell you the finished recipe, or you can ask on the vaping classified subreddit. Some people would interpret your request as looking for the lazy way out, even if you disagree. Best of luck
I'm actually crazy flattered that you'd want to buy this from me. Half the time I don't like the things I make, so someone wanting to pay me real, actual, I swear it's not from a box of Monopoly capital-M Money is a massive compliment. Thank you.
However, I'll have to decline. It ultimately comes down to me being crazy busy. Sometimes, I barely have time to mix myself up liquid, and find myself living 10ml to 10ml bottle until I get an hour to sit down and fill up some of my 60ml bottles. It wouldn't be fair to take your money and have a processing time equivalent to a barge from China.
That being said, like /u/meadrockSD said, you're welcome to request in the appropriate subreddit for someone to make it, or order from a site like VapeCrafter(Which ELR uses).
If I may make a suggestion, though, if you're already mixing and just don't have the flavors, I'd say you aren't wasting money buying them. The only flavor you could possibly argue is niche is Cola. Every flavor in this recipe, sans Cola and EM, are flavors I have in 30ml bottles because I seem to use them for everything, and I'm so stingy about buying more than 8ml at a time.
And if you aren't mixing your own, I'd say dive in. The reason I started is because I wanted to be able to do things like this, where I get some crazy idea for a flavor and instead of having to half-ass two store flavors, I add a couple drops of this, a few drops of that, and poof, I'm vaping something I could never hope to buy at any store. I read about a recipe someone shares online, and I literally don't need to leave my chair before I'm vaping it, because this's the future and such.
You're gonna mess up. Everyone does. I think everyone has that one bottle in their closet somewhere of unvapable drek they keep in case they need to poison an enemy, because they were up late one night, and hell, why shouldn't honey and cucumber go together? But you get better. Like cooking, you cook the recipes to get a handle on it, then you can improvise with modifications, then move onto original recipes.
Hell, I'm writing a pamphlet for my local vaping group on how to mix your own juice, because enough people have shown an interest. I think it's worth looking into, if you don't do it already.