Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.16 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Beer Nuts @ .5%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 12 days.
Flavor Description: Salty nuts. Crispier, grainier roasted peanuts and a smoother almost raw creamy almond at the back. Does a pretty convincing job of tasting salty. Some weird iodine burn like you get from iodized table salt.
Inhale is sharp and nutty, with a stinging salty note. Dense with a roasted kind of sweetness. I get a honey roasted peanut at the front of the exhale, and a smoother creamier almond or cashew towards the back. Still tastes fairly salty, although the inhale is a lot sharper and saltier than the exhale. Peanuts up front are moderately sweet and have a grittier texture. Almond at the back has a denser body, without as much grit. Sweetness also tails off. Lingering rawness in the mouth from that sharper salt flavor with an iodine burn.
Off Flavors: While this legit tastes salty I get a hint of some of that weird iodine note that FLV Peanut Butter. It's not as jasrring here as it is in Peanut Butter, but that could just be that this flavor seems to have a bit more going on.
Throat Hit: Solo, this flavor has a bit of sting to it. You notice it pretty clearly on the inhale in the back of the throat and it tends to stick around your mouth through the entire vape. There's some more traditional throat hit, but that mouth rawness and sting is a little odd. I'm thinking it's tied to whatever flavorah is using to pull off salt.
Uses & Pairings: Crisp and gritty enough to stand in for Acetyl Pyrazine without some of the weird fritos off-notes that come with AP. Useful for adding texture and salt to a bakery. A lot of bakery flavors taste a little flat, like real baked goods do without salt. This gives you the option of adding both texture and seasoning in one shot. AP is useful for making your chocolates come together, and this also brings in some some nuttiness to pair with the chocolate.
Flavorah suggests this for mixing with tobaccos. I think non-aromatic tobaccos are going to be your best bet, but I don't really "get" aromatic tobaccos, so YMMV.
Notes: This stuff is strong. I'd stick to using this under at .5% and under. At .25% you get strong but indistinct nuttiness with some pretty solid salt. At .5% The almond softer nut notes start to separate from that peanut up front. At .75%, that saltiness is getting overwhelming. !% is just about the useful ceiling here. Decently nutty, crisp, and with a good body but that salt note is really sharp and heavy on that aforementioned Iodine edge.
Second Opinions:
There's not a whole lot out there right now...
What's the difference between Beer Nuts and deer nuts?
Beer nuts cost a buck fifty; deer nuts are under a buck.
You planning on doing FLV Biscotti sometime soon?
I was planning on doing a review for it if it wasn't on your radar soon.
Is the throat tolerable or is it pretty overwhelming? You could take this some pretty interesting directions but I feel like the throat might be too limiting
It's no worse than FLV Peanut Butter for me. I think it's tolerable, just because it sells "salty" pretty well. I've been using beer nuts at .25% in tobacco mixes and it seems pretty doable.
Right on! What kind of tobacco have you noticed this does particularly well in if you have enough experience with Beer Nuts to comment to that?
I'm still way in over my head on tobaccos, but I've mixing this with FLV Kentucky Blend and FLV Native Tobacco. The recipe I'm messing with right now is:
3% FLV Kentucky Blend
1.5% FLV Native Tobacco
.75% FLV Toffee
1.5% FLV Custard
.25% FLV Beer Nuts
I don't have a ton of experience with these flavors yet, but I've tried this without and without the beer nuts and it's definitely better with. Adds more of a salty bite without too much added throat hit.