Me and /u/HeadlessMami bring you two things today! A recipe, and in the notes, praise for a crazy awesome flavor that I haven't seen much on the sub yet.
The goal here was the most realistic Baja Blast flavor we could come up with...
Version 1
TPA Citrus Punch 5%
TPA Champagne 0.5%
Cap Juicy Orange 1%
FA Tahity Lime (Cold Pressed) 0.5%
FA Aurora 0.5%
TPA Citrus Punch - The Lemon lime punch base that everyone thinks is a good place to start for Dew, and we agreed.
TPA Champagne - Here to bring the fizz, doesn't contribute anything to flavor really given the other ingredients.
Cap Juicy Orange - True to what I'd think of as an orange concentrate, but it is a bit sweet. Knowing that Mtn
Dew has orange concentrate in the ingredients list, and based on others work with TPA Citrus punch, we thought this would bring us to a better "base" Dew Flavor.
FA Tahity Lime - Bringing the lime, with bite. This is not a sweet lime.
FA Aurora - and this, my friends, is the magic. This gets you a lime fizz flavor on the end of a vape. It's brilliant, and it's quickly becoming a favorite of mine. This is NOT any other lime out there- and i wouldn't call it key lime, or regular lime, or anything else.
Result: Way too sweet, with a bit of an off fruity taste that wasn't what we were aiming for. Also the bite from Tahity lime was a little much at the same moment.
So, off to Taco Bell late night! What better way to clone a flavor than have the flavor at the table? I can't drink soda anymore (part of the reason for wanting this so much!) although I stole a tiny sip or two in the pursuit of SCIENCE, and /u/HeadlessMami did most of the work here in comparisons.
Version 2
TPA Citrus Punch 5%
TPA Champagne 0.5%
Cap Juicy Orange 0.5%
TPA Key Lime 0.4%
FA Tahity Lime 1 drop per 15ml
TFA Koolada 1 drop per 15ml
FA Aurora 0.5%
Cap Juicy Orange tames way the heck down here, and brings what we originally wanted.
Tahity lime was dropped way back, and mostly replaced with TPA Key Lime, which smells a great deal like Baja Blast smells to my nose.
Koolada went into the mix at one drop, because there is an "off" flavor in the real Baja blast to me, that isn't lime. A lot of people say this is blueberry, we say it's Koolada.
Result: We were so ridiculously close here it wasn't funny. The sweetness is better, but the whole thing was still too sweet, and we'd lost too much of the "kick in your face" lime bite that the real beverage has.
Version 3 Same as version two except... Two drops of Tahity lime per 15ml, not one. Yup, you read that right, we altered the recipe by a single drop per 15ml (just added it right in to V2), after some debate between me and HeadlessMami and then going "fuck it, how wrong could we be?"
Result: Score. One drop difference of Tahity lime makes a noticeable difference in taste here. The sweetness and lime bite balanced out great. I'm satisfied that we are as close to the real taste as possible, without dumping Baja Blast from Taco Bell into your tank (please don't).
So the moral of the story is (and why I think this deserves a post):
FA Aurora is Magical. If you want a lime fizzy taste, bring this to the table.
FA Tahity Lime is strong, and, a one drop per 15ml difference, seriously made a big difference in the recipe.
Son of a bitch, here comes another flavor order. I've been doing this for 3 years, and it doesn't get any better(for you rookies)
Here's a modified version of a Baja blast recipe I had found. IMO tfa key lime has no place in this but the original I found used that instead of LTCP. Cutting citrus punch down to 5% sounds like a good idea which means I'll probably cut LTCP to .5 too
As it is I think it's pretty close to the real thing though it's got some gnarly throat hit. Maybe someone can try both and compare!
Blueberry Wild (TPA) 5%
Champagne (TPA) 3%
Citrus Punch (Mt. Dew) (TPA) 10%
Koolada 10% (TPA) 1%
Lime Tahity (Cold Pressed) (FA) 1%
It looks good but there's nothing in there to give it the blue powerade flavor as Baja blast is just 50/50 Mtn dew and blue powerade.
This isn't the first time I've heard this in real life or the internet, but you're so wrong. Where does the different lime flavour come from, then?
That's what drives me nuts about that whole idea. There's clearly additional lime in Baja Blast. I can taste it, it's labeled as extra lime (granted labeling doesn't have to reflect what they really did when it's a descriptor, but...I think it's a big clue in this part that the official packaging says with a blast of tropical lime..)
I seriously question whether the blue food coloring alters the flavor and that's what some people are picking up on is the food coloring. (Which would probably make sense as I doubt they have anything mint/menthol like Koolada in the real thing, but I cannot easily describe that off taste and that was the closest thing flavoring wise).
Which lime flavor there's no lime flavor in baja blast lol your taste buds and the pepsi marketing department are tricking you.
If you go to taco bell and mix dew and powerade 50/50 it tastes like kinda flat baja blast.
I am dead convinced that this cannot be the case. I've heard this before, which is where I think blue raspberry, and blueberry ideas are coming from. But....here's why I think it's wrong.
Powerade is a Coke product, Mountain Dew is made by pepsi. These two do NOT play with each other, a collab would be a HUGE deal in the industry and everyone would know that it was a collab, not just some random flavor of Mountain Dew.
Additionally, there's absolutely more lime in Baja blast than regular Dew, it's easy to prove it by tasting each side by side.
Now, is it possible there is some fruit flavor I missed in Baja Blast that neither I, nor two other people who are good with flavors that have tried to decipher it I know IRL can taste? Sure.
But I think it's extra lime and blue food coloring for the most part.
yeah... i do the blue powerade + mtn dew trick a bunch, and while it works when not at a taco bell, if you try the two side by side it's a noticeable difference.
I will try your mix here soon as this is exactly what I've been waiting for.
I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to DIY, so please forgive the potential ignorance of this question.
I see a debate forming in the comments section about the existence, or lack thereof, of the lime component in Baja Blast.
While it's obvious the label says it contains "tropical lime" could part of the "kick in your face" lime bite you mentioned also be the citric acid that's the fourth most prevalent ingredient (there's more of that in the drink than there is flavoring) in Baja Blast?
I mentioned I don't know much yet about DIY vape liquids, but I used to make sugar-free candies for someone I was dating (diabetic) and I would often use citric acid to enhance the impact of fruit flavors in my recipes.
Could that be part of what's in play here in regards to the intensity of the beverage, and would it work similarly in vape formulae?
Hey, it's all good, I'm still relatively new myself.
And the answer is from a culinary perspective - You might be right and that could absolutely be part of it.
From a vaping perspective- I know citric acid is something you can use in vapes, but I have no idea how to do so properly, or how the effect differs. I would have to assume that citric acid is probably a component in some flavorings (although I could be wrong). Sidebar search might be revealing, but I know most blogs/articles recommend getting your head around working with just flavorings, before you start working with additive style flavorings/additives. Menthol being an exception of course entirely, just about everybody gets their hands on that early.
Either way, I don't have any citric acid in the proper form, and will confess that I think it's some extra lime- but...tastes are different. What to me screams exact match might not to someone else. I just haven't played with it yet and it isn't on my radar to toy with yet.
Fair enough.
I too think it's a wise idea to first get a handle of flavor profiles before jumping into additives like acids, ethyl maltol, etc. with menthol being the obvious exception, as you said.
It's similar to how I approach games that support addons/customization. I first learn how to play it without any of that before I start to mod the hell out of it. ;p