Welcome back to another Modest Monday, you goddamn beautiful creatures.

Yeah, starting off with a compliment, not entirely in CokeCan fashion but who gives a shit? I’m in a decent mood today. When you go through enough bullshit like I have in the past year, and then the weekend ends up proving that everything comes full circle to those that have wronged you, it’s easy to be in good spirits.

So first things first, I’d like to point out something I noticed recently. Every couple of months or so, we get someone that comes up in here swinging their dick around with a post that tries way too hard. We all know I have a certain style of writing, Vurve called it “abrasive,” and I have to agree. The difference between my posts, and these goddamn mongoloids we see every so often, is that by the end of my posts, you probably know what I was trying to convey to you. The name of the game is being tasteful with your aggression. Kinda like a dom/sub relationship. You can hurt them, but you gotta take care of them as well. What I’m getting at is this. If you want to write like me, that’s fine, but maybe lay off of the meth for a few minutes before you make your post, and please just make an effort to use whatever brain cells you may have left.

Anyway, on to the Modest Monday, which I think will quite literally help anyone that reads it all the way through. Whether you’re just mixing for yourself and have hit a bit of a creative roadblock, or you’re taking part in this fucking mess that we at Beginner Blending like to call a “contest,” recipe inspiration and conceptualization is one of the most important traits to have as a mixer. It’s what will allow you to create something unique, as opposed to yet another fucking strawberries and cream vape.

Yeah I’m calling myself out because my most recent recipe is a strawberries and cream, but fuck off because look at my history. I may not be the best mixer in the community, but I like to believe that I have some of the more unique recipes within the community. Who the fuck else is going to make a recipe inspired by some baby food? No one is that stupid.

Let’s start simple, with essentially how I began my mixing career. So once I got comfortable with the physical act of mixing and started understanding my flavours, I wanted to create things from scratch. Not just hopping on ELR or reddit, finding something that sounded good with what I had in my arsenal, and then mixing it up. So my first stop was the kitchen, more specifically, my recipe book. I have collected countless recipes over my years as a self-proclaimed chef, so I knew I would be able to find something. More than likely, you’re going to want to immediately flip over to that dessert section. Find something that sounds like it’d translate well into a vape, and start breaking down the individual ingredients. Lets look at my Drunken Pears recipe, for example, which was based off of a dessert I’ve been making for years.

So the real recipe is basically some pears that have been sautéed in a brown sugar / bourbon mixture to soften up and absorb all that sweetness and flavour, then tossed in the oven to bake for a little. While that’s going, I’m making some homemade caramel to drizzle over the final mix. The base for everything is a few scoops of vanilla bean ice cream. So based on this, we know that that main flavors we definitely need here are going to be pear, caramel, brown sugar, bourbon, and vanilla bean ice cream. And just like that, you’ve got yourself a nice foundation to start experimenting with. Since this post is focusing on the process of conceptualizing your recipes, I’m not going to get into the next phase, which is refining and focusing in on them, that’ll be a future Modest Monday post.

So let’s say you’re helpless in the kitchen and don’t have a list of recipes to gain inspiration from. Don’t worry, I got you. Well, you should probably worry a little, because everyone should know how to cook a decent meal. It ain’t hard, people. Just fucking practice. Get off the DIY sub and go find you a cooking sub for beginners and start doing that shit. Being able to cook a good meal is important for so many reasons. Number one, you save so much money by cooking for yourself. Number two, it’s healthier almost 100% of the time. Number three, if you’re a man, I guarantee that women will find it attractive that you can cook and you’ll probably get laid every once in a while. If you’re a woman, trust me, cook a good meal for a dude and you’ll be able to play his dumb ass for quite a while. Win win.

Anyway, back to mixing. If you don’t have a bunch of recipes to fuck around with, just go to a grocery store, restaurant, bakery, coffee shop, basically anywhere that you can get food at, and start taking notes. Just like you’d take flavour notes on recipes you mix for vaping, take notes on that basic ass pumpkin spice latte you’re drinking. What do you notice in there that you’d absolutely need to have in the vaping recipe in order to make it accurate? Go look in the frozen dessert section of the grocery store and find some shit you think sounds delicious. Take a look at the ingredient list, and match those ingredients with flavour concentrates. If you can break down the culinary version of whatever profile you’re trying to create into a sort of general flavour, background notes, and accents, you can turn it into a vape.

Alright, so these are just a few of the ways you can start to be inspired and begin conceptualizing your recipes. I know there are plenty of other ways to go about it, and share your preferred method in the comments. The main thing to remember is this, you don’t always have to go with the immediately obvious option. Think outside the box. The beauty of food and flavours in general is that they have the ability to be manipulated. Strange pairings end up becoming instant classics. I guarantee the first motherfucker to pour salt on their caramel was probably assumed to have some sort of mental instability. Now that shit is everywhere. Dipping apples in melted cheese? Get the fuck out with that nonsense. But actually don’t because once you try it, you realize it’s one of the most delicious things to grace your taste buds.

Life is weird as fuck, man, and sometimes the weirdest shit ends up being the best. So don’t be afraid to get a little weird. You’ll fuck up, but eventually, something beautiful will happen.

Now get the fuck out of here and get your recipes ready for the first round of MIXXED. And be sure to hang out with Vurve and I tonight at 9:15p EST on the Beginner Blending Podcast on the DIYorDIE network.