Background:

Most of you will probably not know this but I took a trip to the land of the rising sun last month. I'll tell you what hundreds of people have already proclaimed, it's such a galvanizing experience! The culture, the food, the people, I could go on and on. It's surreal... almost like you're living in a different world. If you've never been, I urge you to save up and make a trip there as soon you possible. It will definitely change the way you look at things (I had a hard time adjusting when I arrived home).

Anywhooo, when I was there, I made it a point to try EVERYTHING I could get my hands on. I am a fond believer of, "if you want to live like a local, you have to eat like a local". So I avoided the usual suspects, the McDonald's, the commercialized 24/7 Donburi joints and shitty takoyaki stands.

However, no matter how hard I tried, there was one "mainstream" place that I could not resist. As we were scrambling to look for the next train (we were lost in a train station, that's something you find yourself doing often in Japan), my eyes came across a departmental store similar to Isetan. The name escapes me right now but what really caught my eyes was the bakery located inside it. The sign read, "Blue Star Donut".

It was posh-looking and you could tell that a lot of effort was put in to give you the vibe that this wasn't your run o' the mill bakery. As I stepped inside, I was greeted my various aromas of fresh yeast and doughnuts. Doughnuts of various shapes, colors and sizes. This wasn't your casual Krispy Kreme doughnut (don't get me wrong, I love my KK). This was a couture type of doughnut shop, a "high-end" one that served Blueberry Bourbon Basil, Mexican Chocolate and Raspberry Pistachio doughnuts. This was the inspiration behind the recipe. I hope you like it.

Before flying to Japan, I spent months experimenting with the raspberry and pistachio profile. I did a tobacco (it was okay). Then a cupcake (pretty good!). Then a cookie (back to okay). And then, a cream (mehhhh). Eventually, it became an obsession. I started googling different raspberry pistachio combinations. Finally, I settled for raspberry, white chocolate and pistachio with a touch of creamcake. When you vape this, you will understand why culinary chefs and dessert experts have been using this combination. It. just. works.

Let's take a look at the recipe. After that, I'll break it down for you.

Flavor Profile:

Raspberry, white chocolate, cheesecake

Recipe:

• Inawera Raspberry (Malina) - 1%

• Flavourart Raspberry - 2.5%

• Capella New York Cheesecake - 4%

• Flavor West Sweet Cream - 3%

• Flavor West White Chocolate - 3.5%

• Flavor West Bavarian Cream - 0.5%

• TFA Graham Cracker Clear - 1.5%

• Flavourart Pistachio - 1.5%

Total flavoring: 17.5%

Mix at 70/30 VG/PG

Steep time: 1 week (don't shake and vape it, the white chocolate needs some time to mingle with the cheesecake. If you vape it too early, all you'll get is raspberry and a little pistachio)

Recipe Breakdown:

FA Raspberry/INW Raspberry - I have to come clean. Initially, I used Capella's Raspberry because it has that underlying tartness that I love in berries. However, I had to remove it because it's such a weak flavoring and I was reaching the 20% threshold. I immediately swapped that with INW's raspberry. When paired with FA's, you get a really sweet raspberry jam that's not too candy-like.

Capella NY Cheesecake/FW Sweet Cream - Cheesecake is something I've always had problems tasting. Even in this recipe, the cheesecake doesn't come all the way through. It serves more as a creamy foundation for the other flavors to come through. The addition of FW Sweet Cream adds some sour notes that is inherent in cheesecake.

FW White Chocolate/FW Bavarian Cream - Ahhhh, Flavor West White Chocolate, how I love you so. This beats its TFA counterpart hands-down. It doesn't have a nasty pepper taste and more importantly, it doesn't need as long of a steep. The FW Bavarian Cream helps reinforce the white chocolate frosting.

FA Pistachio - This was the most obvious choice. TFA's version was wayyyy too creamy and tasted more like Baskin Robbin's ice cream. I needed an unsalted and real-tasting pistachio and this flavoring really fit that bill.

Finito!

Well that's the recipe. To be totally honest, it was supposed to be one of the flavors in my ejuice line-up. However, I personally feel that the market is not mature enough to appreciate something like this (they LOVE their fruits and menthols over here). So if you have all the flavors, whip it up, let it steep, vape it after a week and let me know what you think!