Anyone have any experience working with Florals, or have thoughts/opinions on Florals?
I was thinking about it, and Florals are kind of like the opposite end of the spectrum of Earthy flavors; You have your teas, tobaccos, some spices, other like flavors as your dark earthiness, and florals are a sort of bright earthiness.
I think it is somewhat off-putting as we typically relate the term to "Flowers" and attribute the scents to things like soap and grandma's perfume.
Ever since messing around with INW Eucalyptus w/ Mint, and probably more specifically Honey, I have found my self gravitating towards floral aromas, and really appreciating them. Would love to know others' opinions, thoughts, or experience with these profiles
I've worked a lot of them. I use them as I would herbs in a good recipe (I'm a chef by trade). Most of them work wonders with fruits and some tobaccos and custards. A touch of lavender in a custard recipe is delicious. I recently made a mix with FLV Grape and FA Violet, smoothed out with FLV Marsh and some TFA Vanilla swirl; pretty decent.
You would think florals would need significant steep times, and some do to mellow out and step back from the forefront, but for the most part they don't change much with time.
I've worked with FA Rose (not extremely strong, a good "beginner floral"), FA Violet, ExpressFlavors Lavender (fucking strong; needs dilution. 1 drop in a 30ml overpowers everything), FA violet (another good one. Slightly sweet. Like those Violet hard candies), FA Summer Clouds (very mellow in the floral spectrum, with more tropical fruit undertones), FA Ylang Ylang (can't quite figure this one out yet)...I know there's more I'm forgetting. My mother loves floral flavors with some random fruit supporting characters, hence my purchases. Personally, I can't ADV them, but it's a relaxing vape if mixed in balanced. The trick is, again, use them like herbs. You definitely want to taste them, but more in the way that makes you say, "ohhh, what's that!?!"...Not "Holy fuckin basil Batman!"...if that makes sense (for the foodies around these parts).
They are fun flavors to play around with because it takes a deft hand and attention to detail. Potpourri juice is easy to make, but most if us aren't going for that. So the challenge is avoiding that, if a challenge iis your thing.
Ylang ylang is hard, probably due to various associations with it (i.e. Chanel No. 5, various cleaning products) but it can be a good accent in low amounts. Try it with Vanilla at 01% or lower, can "exotic-ify" it a bit. Same with FA Jasmine.
That's awesome, I could totally see that being a good pairing. I've noticed that too, the one's I've messed with don't seem to change a whole lot over time -- Honey was definitely an exception to this trend. Haha, yeah for sure, they make nice accents but you don't want it overpowering or you just get flowers!
Potpourri juice is, indeed, easy to make. I have to remind myself to not use more than 1 or 2 (carefully selected) florals in a mix for that exact reason.
I dumped the last bit of VV Bed of Roses & VV Night Blooming Jasmine into a tank to finish them off once, and it almost turned me off to both forever.
I bought some FA Violet because I like the candies as well. Would you mind sharing a recipe you used it in? I would be very interested in a start off point.
I also have the rose flavoring and it actually tasted pretty good with a little lemon and raspberry. Came out way better than I thought it would putting it together.
My only experience thus far is with FA Rose. Tastes and smells almost identical to Rose Water. I've used it with some success in a Turkish Delight sort of juice. I can't remember the exact recipe as it's on an old hard drive, but I tried it in testers at 0.25%, 0.5%, 1% and 2%.
It's a sweet, rich rose flavour at 2%, I can't imagine it working well in a mix at that level as it's incredibly potent.
At 0.25/0.5% it's a fantastic accent flavour for things like Mango and Orange. It really lifts the recipe.
Oh god, I can't handle rose water. Made some baclava awhile back with it and it just tasted like I was eating an overly sweet rose scented maxi pad. The though of vaping that actually made me gag a little bit.
Very interesting. I figured rose might be one of the next ones I check out so that sounds nice.
I'm a fan of florals, some you may want to look at:
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FA Lavender - good with Vanilla, Blueberry.
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FA Rose - good with Lemon, Raspberry, other misc. berries.
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TFA Honeysuckle - good with Dragonfruit, Peach, Pear.
I picked up Lavender on a whim a while back with no idea how to use it. Lavender Vanilla sounds amazing, so thank you for that!
I think florals are wildly underrated, and underutilized in DIY. They can be very refreshing, and more flexible in terms of food/drink pairing than a lot of other flavor profiles.
I, myself have been near-to-tears trying to perfect that delicate balance between MF Jasmine and various vanillas. (I'm almost there)
This came about when, in 2013, I developed a wild crush on Virgin Vapor's Night Blooming Jasmine. It was the first juice I tried to clone when I started DIY. Silly me. It tasted so simple that I thought it would be easy.
As far as I know, they use only MF Jasmine, and maybe some kind of sweetener, but I gave up trying to replicate that single-note perfection pretty soon out of the gate when I found out how beautifully it paired with vanilla.
/u/botboy141's Vicious Vanilla recipe, with some heavy edits, has gotten me a lot closer to a nice balance without smothering the jasmine out of the equation, but, I'm not quite there yet.
Also, to me, the Honeysuckle in every single Placid clone is The Thing that makes that recipe so goddamn special and interesting. That's another recipe that pairs really unobtrusively with cocktails.
I'm also really, really in love with Rose, as a flavor, but find I have a limited tolerance for them in vapes. I feel like I'm more sensitive to the indoles in rose than I am in jasmine.
Oh, and I also really love a combo of Hibiscus and Lemon, but, I haven't been very dilligent in magic-ing up a recipe that uses them, despite the fact that it's summer and the perfect time for such things. Time for me to re-prioritize, I think. A lemony hibiscus recipe would be delicious with a dirty Arnold Palmer, summer shandy, or a hoppy IPA, I bet.
I can't wait to try vanilla and some floral, seems those are a pretty good combo! Yeah I think it's the perfect time of year for something like that, have had my eye on those Yakima Hops, just wondering which direction to take it. I'm currently working on a profile I think will be nice for fall/winter but I think it's a good idea to start working on some stuff for spring/summer.
That was kind of another thing it got me thinking about was crafting recipes for specific settings (seasons, going out, pool-side, etc.)
I want to say Rose+Vanilla should be good too, but, I don't know. I love rosewater in Ras Malai and Galab Jamun and Indian Rice Pudding, so, it should work, right?
I know I was in love with a Rose/Musk perfume from a little obscure perfumer in the Sonoma Valley. It reminds me that I really should pick up TPA Musk Candy.
They make a killer perfume that I love called "Fireside Intense" which is odd and kinda' macho and smells like an arsonist's leather jacket, and it's all I wear in Fall/Winter.
Makes me think aldehydes might be challenging/infuriating to work with in a vape recipe. I think NN's Patchouli Vanilla qualifies as an aldehyde(?)
And, I can speak to the Vanilla/Jasmine profile in terms of "going out". If you want to spark a conversation, vape some vanilla/jasmine. People immediately want to know what's going on. That profile carries, and I haven't met a single person that isn't seduced by it yet. Even people that hate vapers can't help themselves from liking it.
When you say you have a limited tolerance for rose in gaping, do you mean in terms of throat, flavor, respiratory, something else?
Just flavor. After a bit it seems... Uhh... fecal to me. Sorry, gross, I know. It's super confusing to me, too, because I can vape jasmine all day urryday, and it never gets gross, but, rose does for me.
Anyone else get a very flowery taste from INW cactus? I swear, the most i can use is .25%, anything higher and the whole mix starts to taste like perfume
My first run-in with floral vapes came early. Both TFA Honeysuckle and Cherry Blossom were very cooperative with me, even during early stages of my mixing where little to nothing of what I mixed was pleasant. They do require finding that sweet spot, percentage wise. Too much will cause that perfume-y note/ chemical note. Since then, I've tried many other florals. FA Lavendar, FA Violet, FA Ylang Ylang, TFA Hibiscus, FA Jasmine, FA Rose and TFA Violet candy. Of all of those, I like the lavendar, jasmine and honeysuckle the best. Flavour Art has nice florals, even though I don't much care for the Rose. (but I don't really like rose in general anyway)
Awesome! That's great information. Been wondering which ones might be a good starting point so that helps a lot. If you have experience mixing them in to recipes, what kind of flavor profiles have you done with them?
For florals I usually go pretty basic with them. I'll mix them alone or add cream. (Lavendar and cream goes well together) I've used Jasmine in a couple different boba recipes (trying to make something similar to the Jazzy Boba) and recently made a Lavender bake that was decent. The lavender one was based off someone else's recipe though.
Lavender (FA) 0.5
Meringue (TFA) 0.5
Toasted Marshmallow (TPA) 1.25%
Vanilla Shisha (INAWERA) 0.75%
Vanilla Swirl (TPA) 1%
Have you had any luck with the eucalyptus w/mint? Every time I've tried using it, it is all I taste.
On a food related note, lavender (fresh or dried) is a great pairing with poultry/duck. Add it to a rub with thyme, black pepper, marjoram, etc. Delicious. It's one of the main ingredients in many herbs de Provence blends. It's also a great flavor to infuse into an ice cream/gelato base or panna cotta mixture. Vanilla, orange, lemon, etc. All great pairings.
And Rose; I made a rose petal risotto for last Valentine's day. It's a very subtle flavor, but definitely noticeable on the palate.
I've been halfway joking about this being the next big thing in the flavor market.
I think there's a lot of potential here. It's definitely going to take some really talented mixers to figure out good balances, but I truly think we're gonna start seeing things like lavender and hibiscus this year.
Until recently floral notes or something I would try to work out of a recipe. After reviewing shisha Rosemary been trying to work in Floral and savory notes.
I love INW Shisha Rosemary, and while the only berry I've ever seen rosemary paired with is cranberry, I can't help but feel like it would work with a strawberry, or some kind of dark berry. Haven't been able to personally make it fly, yet, I'm still trying.
I bet INW Rosemary and FA Fuji would be excellent, though.
Have you tried CAP Lychee? Pretty good flavour, turns incredibly floral after a couple of days, it's pretty good if you sweeten the fuck out of it to round it out or use it in real small amounts as an accent to other fruits / fruity deserts.
I haven't. I have used FA Lychee though, and I would imagine they have similar qualities, kind of a fruity floral note. I really like Lychee in particular for it's slight floral note, something I don't think I actually realized until recently lol. One of my very first recipes I made that I liked was an "Exotic Custard" that used Lychee as kind of the main note.
What percent do you use with INW Honey?
I grabbed INW Elderflower after hearing good things about it, still need to get around to it. Not sure what to pair it with for now.
I only have FLV Honey Bee and FLV Elderflower lol. For honey you want to start waaaay low. Typically like 0.125-0.25%, as it can be very floral especially prior to a steep. That's kind of what I'm stuck on is, what kind of mixes do you put them in?
Only thing I can think of is like floral-centered deserts or teas
I hear elderflower is good with apple, passion fruit and sparkling wine. If I ever come up with something nice I'll try to remember and let you know :)
I want to make an elderflower champagne as I think it'd be excellent as the drink itself is awesome. Alas at the moment I have neither ingredients. Maybe honey, elderflower & champagne, maybe with a touch of koolada, cactus, or. Cucumber for coolness too. Going to have to give it a go me thinks.