I work at a B&M, and today (like many days) I had to entertain some travelling salesmen. One thing they had with them that they insisted I try, was a sour skittles ejuice.. being that I've been around the block before, I was pretty committed to feigning a smile while pretending to love their take on FW skittles.. but something bizarre happened.
This juice is legitimately sour. Like, nearly as sour as an actual handful of sour skittles. It's got some serious pucker - power to it, and for the life of me I can't figure out what's going on here.
Now, citric & malic acid are the obvious suspects here, hell, this juice tastes pretty spot on like citric acid. But after my own experiments, and observing a bunch of you doing the same, I had come to the conclusion that it can't be done by that traditional route.
For instance, a touch of citric acid can add a little 'zing' to fruits, but the effect isn't wildly noticeable and it doesn't burn very cleanly. Malic acid is in the same boat more or less, but I find it even less noticeable. Like many novice mixers, I've even tried vastly overdoing it. Like, up to the 5% mark (and every level in between) without hitting that desired sour.
Now, to my understanding, the reason you can't just throw citric acid at the problem is that it degrades at fairly low temperatures (some quick googling suggested~150C). This leads me to believe that lemon juice, and any other traditionally 'sour' additives can probably be written off as unlikely.. but still, I'm gonna be playing around with acids and lemon juice again tonight, just because.
Do any of you have any thoughts? Has anyone here managed to make a seriously sour ejuice? Is it possible to bond citric acid with something that vaporizes at a higher temp? (Random abdada question)
I'd really appreciate any help on this one, and thanks for reading my rambley wall of text.
TL;DR - I vaped some juice today that was really sour. How do?
EDIT:: Upon further testing, I think that this juice is (like Wayne suggested) just using a blend of citric and malic acid. For some freakish reason, it drips fairly cleanly at ~250 watts, but ran through my Griffin and my Cleito it wicks atrociously, and seems to butcher coils. While it was super neat, I don't know that I can recommend this juice.
I made a batch of a fruit blend of mine, added 3% TFA sour and ~800 mg of citric acid powder and shook the hell out if it. It definitely adds some sour, but makes the juice unvapeable in tanks, extra harsh, and as /u/burymeinsmoke mentioned, adds a chlorine like aftertaste.
What was the brand and flavor of juice. You have certainly piqued my interest.
I'm PM'img you because I really don't wanna turn this into a free ad for this company.. If a couple people think that's stupid though, I'll post it.
Edit: the juice is called "Sour Rainbow" by Vango, part of their new line called Candyville.
Those Vango guys are persistent salesmen.
Hell yeah they are, when they announced who they were I was borderline angry they were back, since we'd declined them a half dozen times already.
I think they've gone through some changes though, they have a couple new 'premium' lines with a few suprisingly good ones in there (at a premium price point though), they also seem to have a new rep.
Here is the link I found for it.
https://www.vangovapes.com/collections/candyville/products/sour-rainbow
Just got a 70ML at 6mg and will test it out to see if it is any good. Did not see any discount codes one their FB but just entered Reddit10-30 and reddit15 is a discount code. Use that if you are trying it out. Total cost with shipping to me (Missouri resident) was $51.60 CAD ($58.49 CAD w/o discount code).
Subtotal $45.99
Discount REDDIT15 -$6.89
Shipping $12.50
Total CAD $51.60
In USD that is about $39.49 (That is the amount that is pending on my card). I anyone wants me to post my thoughts when I get it remind me in about a week and i will let you know if i think it is any good or not.
EDIT:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still have not received it yet. It was ordered on 04/06/2016.
http://imgur.com/A38bEH9
No conformation email from shipping. Checking in with support to see what is going on.
EDIT2:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Got a reply back from their support. Just as a side note, they got back to me in about 2hr's and as the following email states, they seem to have a solid CSR team. This is just one email in one case though so I can not say for sure.
>Hey My Name,
>So sorry about the wait. Unfortunately there's no way for me to let you know about delays via the website, so thank you for inquiring. Production is backed up a bit at the moment, this is left over from a huge March rush that knocked us back big time. Of course, this is no fault of yours, and I am so sorry it's taking so long. The lab has provided me with an ETA of tonight for your order, which means it will be shipped out tomorrow morning. I'll send it express and hopefully it gets to you in a short time! Also, I'm going to include a handful of extras for you as an apology and to thank you for being so patient. Once it's been shipped out you'll get a tracking number via email so you can watch your shipment on it's journey :) Again, I'd like to apologize on behalf of VanGo Vapes, and thank you for your order.
i defiantly want to know
Did you vape enough of it to see what it did to your coils?
Yup, I figured I'd hammer our sample bottle for a few hours for that exact reason. I'm about 7ml in now, dripping at high wattage, and this stuff is very clean burning.. like, cleaner than your average 'premium' full of sweeteners.
Weird, I'd have expected if there was a large percentage of an acid in there it would be hell on coils.
Any chance it's some smartly selected flavourings that give the impression of sourness more so than actual sourness? If you're brave and the nic level is low you could put a bit on your tongue and see how sour it is.
Not that I can help you with what's in there...just a few things that may help figuring it out.
Me too man, when I had my first puff on the tank they had it in, the first question I had was "how badly does this stuff eat coils" and they assured me it was clean burning.
It's certainly possible that this stuff is additive free, but in my quest for sour flavorings I've never seen anything close to this sour..
I have done a little drip test onto my tounge, this stuff is pretty sour through and through. It honestly tastes like there's some citric acid to it, it just doesn't seem to vape like it at all.
Cold Fusion has a juice called Hiss Tank that is a sour blue raspberry that actually has some sour but isn't overwhelming. It burns clean and I've ran at least 90ml over my current coils with no problems. I bet they use the same sour ingredient, I haven't been able to figure that shit out though.
Just an update, my wicks are still far from being brown but after 12mls or so it seems like the cotton just doesn't wick well anymore. I'm getting dry-ish hits while my cotton is still fairly damp looking, but my coils still look pretty clean.
I'm putting this one down for now and rewicking, but overall I guess I'd say it burns about as cleanly as any of our other premiums.. way cleaner than I would have thought, at least.
Interesting. It's possible I guess to use way less than I did and achieve a similar effect.
I'll have to keep an eye out for this juice.
Since sour works on the tongue, we know it can't be a specific flavoring. I'm thinking it's a nice combo of sweetener, citric and malic to get it done. Is there a ton of flavor, or is it mostly experience?
As funny as it is to say, I think FW skittles is still the main flavour here, just like every other skittles juice. It's not super flavourful either, but that's probably for the best considering how obnoxious that stuff can get when people cram 20% into a bottle.
It's definitely the sourness I'm raving about more than anything, but overall I'm still pretty impressed.
Just spitballing here; Ammonium Chloride? It's... interesting
I've been looking for a sour juice forever, but for $21.99? Nah, not gonna even bother.
Thanks OP, atleast I know its out there.
edit: Woah $16 USD, mayyyy have to give this a go after all.
edit2: $12.50 shipped though... ouch
I tried a juice called katarina I beleive? By ritual ejuice, and it was a pretty solid sour skittles vape. I'm actually pretty close to it using TFA Rainbow Drops, TFA lemon, and 1% citric acid. Im kinda afraid to go higher than that lol. TFA lemon helps out a lot in making it sour IMO
Not sure where I found this recipe (wish I could give them credit). Try it.
Ingredient|% :---|---: Cotton Candy (Circus) (TPA)|1 Rainbow Drops (TPA)|13 Sour (TPA)|5 Sweetener (Sucralose) (TPA)|1
Flavor total: 20%
Remember to rate it at e-liquid-recipes.com!