As you may or may not recall, a few month ago I wrote this post about getting the most out of your flavor extracts by creating your own master list of the properties of flavors by testing and keeping extensive notes.

If you haven't already read that piece, this write up will do nothing for you, as it's a slightly more advanced technique for getting the best possible flavor from your liquids.

If you go right now and turn on any cooking channel - the food network, the cooking channel, and all of those, you'll hear this term undoubtedly within a few moments of turning the channel on:

layering flavor

No one here can argue that there are not parallels between making ejuice and cooking or crafting cocktails. Yes, we may have different raw ingredients and follow different principals and properties to achieve the end result, but we are undoubtedly layering flavors to get a final product.

When cooking, it's often seasoning every ingredient along the way. Maybe adding aromatics like celery, onions, carrots, garlic, pepper that infuse an additional level of flavoring above and beyond that main ingredient.

We don't really have the luxury of adding simple aromatics to enhance flavors, nor do we have centuries of time tested methods to follow without knowing exactly why it works.

Enough about that. Here's my point. Let's take a simple flavor aroma from my arsenal that I use pretty regularly:

• TFA Orange-Mandarin

My notes, after tasting extensively, was that this is sort of a tang flavor. Juicy, orange, but not real orange. It's definitively missing some roundness to flavor. There's also a tinge of candy-like finish there that is slightly displeasing.

It's great if you want an orange note and will add that to virtually any mix in small percentages. It's neither over or under potent and stays virtually constant throughout the aging process.

Think of it as adding a splash of orange to a margarita. It's strong enough to stand up to powerful ingredients like the tequila, it compliments the other secondary notes - orange from the triple sec, and the citrus component of sour mix. But if it's sub-par orange juice it won't taste good by itself.

But today, I don't want to use orange as an enhancer or secondard flavor note. I want Big, juicy, fresh, in your face orange. How can I achieve that?

First, I want to look at what I am missing in the flavor profile above - I have juicyness, and I have an orange juice like flavor (tang) albeit more on the artificial side of things, and I have a candy-like sweet finish.

So what's missing? The zesty, pithy, oily flavors of a fresh just peeled orange. Balance from that sugary finish in bitterness.

How can I get that?

So I check my arsenal, not to see how to amplify the flavor I already have, but to layer in additional orange note flavors.

There's an easy way to do this.

• LA Orange Blossom

While still being orange, it's a different orange. More like orange blossom water, it's pithy, bitter, dry, but still orange. And this flavor is intense. It's outrageous.What would I even use something like this for unless I was trying to mimic orange bitters in a boubon manhattan?

But a combination of the two, well that's exactly what we are discussing here. Layer the orange flavors. One gives you juicy, almost fake orange flavor with sweet finish. One is exceptionally pungent, bitter, dry but also adds the oil, pithy flavor the brain recognizes as a freshly peeled orange.

I mix them like this:

• 8 parts TFA Orange-Mandarin
• 1 Part LA Orange Blossom
• 1 drop any Lime per 15ml base (enhances citrus note)

It took some time to find the right ratio to mimic "real" orange flavor, but this has worked out for me to be as close to the real thing.

I am not telling you this is always necessary. There are many aromas that can give you a full, round, complete real taste. But there are a lot that cannot as well.

You can do this with virtually any flavor out there.

Graham Cracker? Sure there are 20 different versions. What if you find the strengths and weaknesses, combine them, and end up with a spot on, crumbly, grahamy touch of cinnamon perfect buttery rich crust?

Strawberries? Probably the most common use of this technique. Sweet strawberries + ripe strawberries + a drop of cactus tastes like you picked it off a vine and popped it right in your mouth.

Apples - under served market. There are billions of apple flavors, I'm sure with a little dedication and time, you could find a combo of 1,2, or even 3 to layer in the flavor to get a final result of a real, just bit into the skin and flesh of a granny smith apple flavor.

My point, in summary, is - if you want to up your DIY skills, and get juice that creates and mimics an exact flavor in the real world, you must already have notes and information on each flavor on it's own and what it's profile is. Then it's as easy as opening your notes, combining a few ingredients (or buying up based on others notes here) and completely change what you have in your bottle.

So layer your flavors. Break the rules. Add 10 different blueberry concentrates together until you can taste the tart peel, the juicy flesh, feel the juice run down your chin.

The sum is only equal to it's parts for the uneducated.

Knowledge is power

*The sum of two lesser parts can be greater if it enhances the strengths and lessens the weaknesses.

Good luck, and happy mixing.