I'm about 3-4 weeks in to mixing and while I'm starting to make decent liquids, I'm not even remotely close to making 'trancendental' flavors. By which I mean a mixture that goes beyond just the base flavors and tastes like something totally unique and different which you can give a unique name. So far my better recipes can be easily deconstructed to 'strawberry and white chocolate ' or 'tobacco cider'. My current goal is one new recipe a day, so every morning I make up a batch that has to be unique in concentrates and ratio. Hoping this will be enough that in a year or two I can make some spectacular mixes.
In my head, I am constantly trying to put 3-6 flavors together to make different recipes throughout the day.
On paper and actually mixing them, maybe 2-3 new ones per week. I made up many sub-par recipes when I first started mixing, but since I've been actually testing individual flavors at different percentages, I find that what I've come up with has been much better than when I first started.
It sounds like a lot of boring work, but the actual calculating and mixing is the most tedious part. Tasting them and dumping 2 or 3 together here and there is the fun part. That's when you really start to notice an increase in the quality of your recipes too.
Practice and research are what counts when it comes to mixing. With that being said, one of my very first mixes (day one) was spectacular and had 5 flavor notes. Constantly revising a recipe can help but also hinder a mix as well. I've been tweaking the same 2 and 3 flavor recipes for months now and I'm just now getting to a point where I may actually be comfortable enough to share a few of them with the community. As for when a new recipe is created, that just depends. Sometimes you get bored with the flavors you use and just go a totally different direction. I started with fruits, then bakery, and now I've been on fruits for a few months but my new flavor order to develop a blueberry cobbler is on it's way (cmooonn monday, hurry up.). Occasionally I'll see a mix here and think "damn that sounds good" or "huh that seems good but may be better with (insert flavor) instead of (insert flavor). Sometimes still I'll just look at my shelf of diy gear and pick a base flavor or think about good combos and go from there. The best source of inspiration for me is the foods and drinks that I enjoy on a regular basis. Strawberry anything, peaches and cream (that's next after the cobbler I'm going to be working on), donuts, cheesecake, etc, etc. Browsing through this sub is a great way to find inspiration as well as recipes to follow.
Also check out the new mixers threads and the monthly recipe threads. They're all archived and are a wealth of information that's invaluable to new and experienced mixers alike.
Dude me too! I've only created about 10 recipes total (4 are duds, 4 are decent). Only 2 I'd consider all day vapes, and one of them I just mashed together on my very first day.
Because I have 2 adv and 4 decent flavors it's really hindered my creating new recipes cause I'm comfortable.
Complacency is a bitch sometimes haha. I break out of the same flavors by hopping on to one of the diy shop websites and browsing through concentrates. I also get input from my gf and a few people I let try juice, suggestions and requests are fairly common and that really helps too.
I'm constantly trying to find new ideas, and try to stay away from the norm. Walking around grocery stores has definitely sparked a few ideas and I'll usually stick with mixing and tweaking a single recipe for about 6-10 weeks, about 3-5 different recipes at a time.
A good way to come up with new recipes is take basic 3-4 flavor recipes and then expand upon them from there.
So if you like mothers milk...custard, strawberry, sweet cream....maybe then add a bakery flavor and a weird fruit. now you have a proven recipe with a new twist.
thats how i come up with new recipes and keep from getting tired of everything.