I usually exhibit much more humility than this and have never posted a recipe outside of the monthly thread before, but I wanted to share with any members of our community who might not be following DIYorDIE or All The Flavors a couple of these recipes I created in order to (just barely) win that competition. Can't do that without first saying thank you to a few folks.

Bull City Flavors for being the main sponsor for the competition, along with the other sponsors listed here: http://diyordievaping.com/worlds/

DIYorDIE: /u/enyawreklaw, /u/NotCharlesManson, and /u/Skiddlzninja for all the time and effort that goes into putting on such a contest.

/u/Loco_Mojo, who dropped out of the contest so I could take his spot.

Everyone who competed and made it such a fierce competition, but especially my friend /u/mlNikon and my nemesis, /u/ConcreteRiver.

/r/DIY_eJuice, which is filled with wonderful people who taught me everything I know about mixing.

For the first round we had to try to make the best fruit using only three flavorings and had only 3 to 4 days to do it. And we couldn't use FLV, so that ruled out my beloved FLV Mango. I had an idea that trying to make a fruit we don't have a good concentrate for out of existing fruit flavors would be a way to stand out in this round. My recipe was said to be #5 out of 30 that were entered.

Bare Necessities

Mfg | Flavor | % ---|---|---- CAP | Sweet Guava | 2.5 FA | Watermelon | 2.25 FA | Pear | 0.75

Notes:

Prickly Pear Fruit

Why did Baloo, the bear from Disney’s original Jungle Book, love prickly pears so much that he included them in a song about “the simple bare necessities of life?” Because the prickly pear cactus’ fragrant fruit is among nature’s most succulent sweet treats. If it weren’t for the spines making them painfully difficult to harvest and prepare, these marvelous magenta fruits might be eaten to extinction. The fruit of the prickly pear cactus tastes nothing like the plant that bears them. Those paddles that look like the tails of demonic green beavers, also known as nopales, are vegetables that taste like a cross between INW Cactus and green beans, with hints of okra and bell pepper. The prickly pear fruit, however, taste more than anything like some kind of all-natural watermelon bubblegum, and they combine sweet juiciness with just enough of a sharp tangy bite like that of a not-quite-ripe strawberry to make them mouthwatering and keep you wanting more.

CAP Sweet Guava alone tastes halfway like prickly pear, nearly as much as it does an actual guava, because it has that same bubblegummyness of a prickly pear. It also has a bit of tartness that’s not like citrus fruit, but more like a barely-ripe berry or slightly sour grape, just like the prickly pear. It forms the thick, syrupy base of this recipe. The FA Watermelon blends with that base to evoke the unique flavor of the prickly pear and is the only watermelon flavor authentic enough to mix with Sweet Guava and not be a one-way ticket to Candyland. But for all its unmatched natural flavor, FA Watermelon falls short in a big way. It’s terribly dry, very nearly watermelon jerky. No problem, thanks to FA Pear. The prickly pear, despite it’s name, doesn’t taste at all like a pear, but the actual pear flavor of FA Pear is overwhelmed by the much heavier guava and the higher concentration of FA Watermelon, so all that’s left is extra juicy goodness to rehydrate the recipe.

Next, we needed to make a 4-flavoring candy, emulating one already on the market, using only TFA and CAP ingredients. This one was said to be #1 out of 10 for that round.

Mango Tango

Mfg| Flavor | % ---|---|---- CAP | Sweet Mango | 4.5 TFA | Philippine Mango | 4 CAP | Jelly Candy | 3 TFA | Cinnamon Red Hot (no PG) | 0.5 TFA | Sweetener | 1

Notes:

Hot Tamales, the classic chewy, spicy jelly candy, now comes in a tantalizing new variety: Hot Tamales Tropical Heat. Unlike the purely cinnamon originals, these new Tropical Heat Hot Tamales come in three fruity flavors: Limon Fever, Pineapple Picante, and my favorite, Mango Tango.

Aside: I hope this recipe inspires someone to nail the Limon Fever and Pineapple Picante flavors, I tried but could not do it under the contest parameters.

3% CAP Jelly Candy + 0.5% TFA Cinnamon Red Hot (no PG) + 1% TFA Sweetener. This is your classic Hot Tamale flavor. The candy starts off sweet and then the heat builds as you chew. It creeps up slowly, mostly hitting the back of your throat, followed by just a little burn around the sides of your tongue. The spicy cinnamon continues to build with each piece, so the more you eat, the more you feel the heat, until your tongue sizzles four or five pieces in. This vapes the same way. Weigh the TFA Cinnamon Red Hot carefully; it’s a powerful ingredient and being even one-tenth of a percent off will easily be too much or too little. TFA Sweetener is NOT optional and cannot be substituted with EM or a sucralose solution; Hot Tamales need both the sugar lips effect of a little sucralose and the sweetness-enhancing and flavor-rounding properties of maltol. You get more of a homemade, pectin-based gummy treat, rather than a mass-produced jelly bean-type candy, without the TFA Sweetener.

CAP Sweet Mango has the density and depth to infuse this recipe with mango flavor and the CAP Jelly Candy interacts with it in a way that curbs its tendency to taste like cloyingly overripe, fast approaching rotten, fruit. However, it’s still not quite vibrant and fresh enough to mimic the burst of bright mango flavor you get as soon as the sugary shell of a Mango Tango Hot Tamale crumbles on your first bite. TFA Philippine Mango is too weak to lead any mango profile without using a ton of it and bringing along a gnarly chemical off-note, but the addition of it here gives CAP Sweet Mango’s fleshy flavor a brighter, more nectary taste like the candy's mango flavor.

Then, we had to make a milkshake, using only 4 ingredients that had to be TFA, CAP, FA, and FW - and had to use one ingredient from each of them. That was quite a hoop to jump though! This one was judged to be #2 out of 5 for that round:

Swashbuckle Shake

Mfg | Flavor | % ---|---|---- CAP | VBIC | 6 FA | Jamaica Special Rum | 2.25 TFA | Coconut Candy | 1.75 FW | Bavarian Cream | 1.5

I was starting to crack under the pressure of this round and badly needed some comic relief, so I provided it to myself (sorry guys, you get the original pirate notes, no time to translate it to plain English):

Coconut Rum Milkshake

Ahoy, buckos! Splice the mainbrace! Why in th' name 'o Posideon would ye blend a milkshake wit' landlubbin moo juice when ye could mix it wit' delicious coconut milk? 'N what kind 'o scurvy corsair would ye be if ye didn' load 'er up wit' rum?

CAP Vanilla Bean Ice Cream be th' meat 'n potatoes, ye sea rations 'o sorts, 'o 'tis milkshake. Avast! Don't be ye substitutin TFA VBIC in here; 'tis too buttery fer 'tis shake made fer pepper tasters, CAP's version has a wee bit more milkiness.

FW Bavarian Cream be sweet, rich, heavy, 'n dense, but not so dense dat ye can't be slurpin it through a straw. And hoist the mainsail, to be sure! It makes th' difference betwixt ice cream 'n milkshake har.

FA Jamaican Special: Aaarrrgh, maties! Rum! Right up thar wit' rapin' 'n pilliagin' on a pirate's priority list. 'Tis one's got some extra dark brown sugar, almost molasses, aspect t' it, which might be out 'o place in many profiles that call fer lighter rum, but them fit right in har 'n keep 'tis shake from needin' any o' dat coil rogerin' super sweetener. Yo-ho-ho!

Shiver me timbers! TFA Coconut Candy, when used low enough t' keep 'er from gettin' plasticy, be a jolly 'hore 'o a concentrate, a right burried booty wit' a taste reminiscent 'o th' white goop inside a Mounds bar... and o' th' coconut flavor in yer trusty Parrot Bay 'n Malibu rums, to be sure. Rums! Har, it also helps gift us more 'o dat milkshake mouthfeel, me hearties.

I needed something to vape between versions of my final round entry, as well as a little more comic relief, so I whipped this up:

Bonus Recipe 1: Spiny Dragon Strap-On

Mfg | Flavor | % ---|---|---- INW | Cactus | 0.25 TFA | Dragonfruit | 2 FA | Fuji Apple | 2 FA | Strawberry | 3 FA | Watermelon | 3

Notes: A refreshing, interesting fruit medley. You get all of the different fruits but none too much and the flavors seem to play which each other a little differently every draw.

Spiny: INW Cactus. If you're a Phucker Phan, you can turn up the Cactus to 0.5%. Maybe even higher. But if you do that, I recommend at least an overnight steep.

Dragon: TFA Dragonfruit. Tastes like what dragonfruit would taste like if dragonfruit tasted like the essence of white gummy bears.

Strawberry-Apple-Watermelon: All FA. I should change my name to HiC and charge for this stuff.

Finally, we were limited to five flavors, and they had to be flavors sold by BCV, and we had less than 3 full days to do it, but other than that, we were free. I missed the restrictions, they really helped narrow the focus, but here's the one that won:

Longing

Mfg | Flavor | % ---|---|---- TFA | Honeysuckle | 3 TFA | VBIC | 1.5 FLV | Cream | 1 INW | Shisha Vanilla | 1 FA | Cream Fresh | 1

Notes:

Honeysuckle Ice Cream based on this recipe: http://theviewfromgreatisland.com/honeysuckle-ice-cream/

TLDR for that link: pick fresh honeysuckle blossoms and steep them overnight in milk, heavy cream, and sugar. Strain out the flowers, add real vanilla bean, and run the mix through an ice cream machine.

TFA Honeysuckle infuses the cream flavors with a delicate floral perfume. It’s carefully balanced at 3% to work as a shake-and-vape recipe here. Any higher would be overdoing it – we want the just the sillage of this summery fragrance, nature’s magnet for birds and bees, left behind after steeping in the ice cream base. Failing to strain out the flowers themselves would spoil this elegant dessert.

INW Shisha Vanilla brings a sweet, creamy vanilla, very reminiscent of a homemade, non-custard vanilla ice cream. This could almost be a two-ingredient recipe with just these two flavors, but some additional creams pick up where Shisha Vanilla leaves off.

TFA Vanilla Bean Ice Cream is a tricky but essential addition. It’s tricky because it has something we don’t want, those custard notes, as this is an egg-free, AKA Philadelphia-style or American-style ice cream. Used low enough with these other ingredients, eggs can be avoided while still providing what we do want – that dense body and luxurious mouthfeel of churned heavy cream that Shisha Vanilla doesn’t have enough of, and a more robust, truly vanilla bean flavor as opposed to Shisha Vanilla’s flavor that sits somewhere between extract and bean.

FLV Cream adds more neutral creamy body to the mix and binds and blends the honeysuckle, vanilla, and creams together. It enhances the heavy milk taste of Cream Fresh as well, but alone, it lacks enough dairy flavor to complete the milk and cream mix used to make this ice cream.

FA Cream Fresh brings the milk, but too much of it seems to react poorly to Honeysuckle in souring way, as if the ice cream had been made with milk that was a day or two past its sell-by date. To complete this ode to longing, Cream Fresh and FLV Cream need each other.

And why "Longing?" Because I miss someone who isn't mine to miss, dream about someone who isn't mine to dream about, and love someone who is no longer mine to love. Moving on with anyone else is hard when they kiss me and I'm afraid all they taste is her name on my lips. Of all the sensual pleasures we once shared, it is her unique flavor I still thirst for most of all. The closest thing I've found to the taste of her body at the height of her bliss, her amrita, is Honeysuckle Ice Cream.

I was fortunate enough to have this last one come together just in time to celebrate, I was enjoying it last night from the edge of my seat waiting to hear whether I'd won and was excited to share it today.

Bonus Recipe 2 Mother of God's Milk

All TFA

Flavor| % ---|--- Dragonfruit | 4 Strawberry | 3 Strawberry Ripe | 2 Vanilla Swirl | 3 Bavarian Cream | 2

Steep Time: 7 days

Notes: It was strange and very difficult making recipes that had no steep time for the comp. This one definitely needs those seven days. Vanilla Swirl is like a flower that takes a week to bloom in this recipe, which I created for /r/MixersClub, as seen here.

You might want to check that ATF link just for the fine photoshop work by a community member who wishes to remain anonymous but might or might not be part of the /r/GooberGrapeVape endeavor.

If you've ever wondered what sweet baby Jesus tasted when he breastfed, this is the recipe for you. A bright, clean, dragon-berry milk, kind of like a Creamsaver that doesn't exist but definitely should. Inspired by God Milk by SkiddlzNinja and my own Mother of Dragons' Milk recipes, but better than either of those.

Happy Mixing!