Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.15 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Spearmint @ 1% and 1 drop per 10ml, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 5 days.
Flavor Description: Middle of the road spearmint in a good way. No real leaf, more a softer spearmint oil kind of taste. Base sweetness with light mentholation. Straddles the line between candy, realistic, and icy fairly well. Not crazy strong, useful at around 1% for an accent or up to 3% as a stronger primary or solo flavor.
Moderately dense inhale. Round, softer, spearmint flavor, with a bit of building mentholation. Sweetness is present, but not overwhelming. Tastes a lot like a spearmint gum. Exhale has more of that spearmint. Soft, and kind of creamy without any real herbaceous mint leaf taste. Top notes have some sharper mentholation, but not overwhelming at 1%. That slightly bitter mentholation lingers, but it isn't overpowering. Still pretty neutrally sweet.
Off-flavors: Not really. Definitely a softer take on spearmint and not really herbal, but nothing that shouldn't be there.
Throat Hit: I can't pick up anything beyond the slight cooling.
Uses & Pairings: Competent as a solo flavor for people that just want spearmint. Pretty well balanced overall, should be able to just set this up at 3% and go.
The usual go to for spearmint are melons and cucumber. This should work really well in that application, without any kind of sharper bite.
Good for an accent in fruit mixes. Pretty unobtrusive but will bring in some brighter freshness.
Also mellow enough for cream pairings within reason. Could add some realism to something like a mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Good option for other more herbaceous flavors like basil or rhubarb. Also mellow enough to work with florals, especially vanillas.
I'd say mojitos, but this is lacking a bit of an herbal taste for crushed mint leaves and I'd really like a good option for a white rum concentrate. Lime or other citrus is a good pairing here. A mint julep may be doable though, those always read a bit sweeter to me.
Notes: Concentration testing, not quite the bulldozer of a flavor I'd expect from a Flavorah Spearmint flavor. Lighter at .25% and .5%, just a hint of spearmint over a softer, fairly neutral base. Might have some use a a slight accent at .5%. 1% has a bit sharper spearmint flavor, but still fairly soft and realistic tasting. I am getting some lighter mentholation at 1%, both as the inhale builds and at the tail end of the exhale. 1.5% seems to just up the mentholation. Still no off flavors, but a clearer cooling effect. 2% is getting a bit icy, as that cooling becomes the dominant characteristic. No real increase in spearmint flavor, just more menthol. 3% is about my workable limit for this. Good balance of flavor, sweetness, and cooling. Will be my go-to for a single spearmint flavor. 4% is a bit too cool for me, and I'm starting to get some slightly bitter off flavors. Usage percentage on this is going to be heavily influenced by your menthol tolerance. If you want spearmint flavor, I'd recommend starting at .5% for a lighter touch and 1% for a fairly full spearmint. If you're after the cooling, Just go nuts until it's too mentholated for you.
Second Opinions:
The deleted user strikes again:
"Round, focused spearmint with some Koolada-esque chill. Nothing angular or searing. Powerful but not aggressively minty. Sweet (not cloying). Well-behaved mint. Fine solo as a pleasant ADV. Use anywhere you want full-bodied spearmint. Careful adding Koolada/Ice. Old-school Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum (white pack)"
One comprehensive set of notes on ELR by user "Pro_Vapes":
"Flavorah Spearmint is very true to its name. Unlike some other spearmint flavors, it actually tastes like spearmint, and not a mix of wintergreen or peppermint flavors alongside spearmint. This is a very straight-forward flavor, so there isn’t too much to say about it. It’s mildly sweet by itself, so it won’t need any additional sweeteners in a single flavor mix. This is a very smooth flavor, and is really quite unique in this way. The other mint flavorings I’ve come across both in DIY and cooking are almost universally a little too harsh on the throat/palette. So, if you want a really smooth mint-chocolate ice cream or grasshopper pie recipe, this is an automatic inclusion in my opinion.")
Awesome, thank you! Do think one of those herbaceous flavors could bend it in leafy direction if you wanted that?
Probably. FLV Basil has quite a bit of plant to it above .5% and basil and spearmint aren't too far from each other.
I'm actually thinking a bit of TPA Spearmint might work too. TFA's spearmint is a bit brutal by itself, but maybe .25% to 1.5% FLV Spearmint could get some of that herbaceousness back.
TFA spearmint is so good as long as you stay under 1%. I made an awesome clone of wrigleys gum earlier this week with it. It has this odd juiciness
In general, do you find FLV flavors hold up to a long steep? In the tobacco realm, they seem to fall off quite a bit after a few months. I wonder if this applies to all their stuff.. It's a gift and a curse cuz their stuff is great for shake n vape but making large batches has led to mild disappointment at times.
I haven't noticed a big difference within a month, but I don't usually mix out that far. I do some big batches for friends, and I haven't heard any complaints about at anything falling off drastically, but I'm not sure they'd be able to pick out it in a juice.
When you find that white rum concentrate, please share!