As we've briefly discussed, I have some theories regarding slushy construction. I have to stress these are just theories, but you'll have a chance a have to test and subsequently confirm or gag when my mixer's club stuff hits the state-of-the-art Texas distribution center.

I did some rough brainstorming on slushes, and what kind of makes them distinct from other profiles.

In terms of flavors, when I think of slushes, I think of candy flavors, but wet and syrupy. I don't think there's a distinct difference between something like blue raspberry candy flavor, and a blue raspberry slush flavor... at least in terms of the underlying flavors. I think you're looking mostly at flavor saturation. For a slush you want that thick, solid bright flavors without too much nuance. So nothing floral, nothing fleshy, just obnoxious and bright. Something like the difference between INW Lime and FA Lime Distilled. You want no peel notes, no dimension, just a flavor that tastes like it could be a color.

The second big component is going to be texture. I feel into a bit of wikipedia black hole doing research on this. My best guess is that a slurpee is a pumpable ice, which basically means that you have a slurry of extremely fine ice crystals. From what I can tell, the difference between a good slush (like a slurpee) and a bad slush (like off-brand gas station slushes) is the fineness of those ice crystals and that a slurpee is technically carbonated, with CO2 basically suspended in that ice slurry. Food technologists, man. But the way that applies to a slush vape is interesting. Best I can tell, you want a fine grittiness, but one that stands up to wetter flavors. You also want your flavor to kind of stick to the inside of your mouth, like soda syrup, and that heavy-dense filmy HFCS sweetness. I tackled those textural components by, or at least attempted to tackle them, by using CAP Hibiscus and RF VG Soda Base. The Hibiscus, to me, has basically no floral component. It just tastes generically sweet with some apple-ish character to it, but this really weird sticky mouthfeel. It's an effect that shows up in my "The Colada Affair" recipe. It sticks to your mouth like whatever blend of emulsifiers and sweeteners they use in a slurpee. It helps sell a frozen drink. The RF VG Soda Base, is not actually a soda base, but it does have a really fine gritty texture that tends not to mess with flavor all that much, as well as thickening the entire thing.

And lastly, you have the cooling. I think the cooling for a slush needs to pretty prominent. I personally don't have an issue with koolada, so I'd use some of that for exhale coolness. But I think the coolness is so vital for the experience I'd consider adding in some menthol, on top of the koolada. For a slush, I'd want cooling on the inhale and on the exhale. I want some serious ice to it.

Wildly unproven as of yet, but hey, slushes man.

I've only ever used OSDIYS Blue Raspberry Slush in Blue Frost.

I think in most cases your going to have the easiest time achieving the slush type flavor with sweetener and koolada. At least that's what makes sense to me.

You guys need to add WS-23. It's basically liquid ice.

I have been pondering "slushy" vapes quite a lot recently. I think the flavor profiles themselves aren't too hard to capture it is more a case of creating the textural experience to sell it. I would like to thank Concrete River for tuning me in on this. I think additives like cactus (being careful to not let its flavor overtake your main profile) and marshmallow can help with the thick wet mouth feel aspects depending on the type of slush your trying to emulate. Also selecting flavors that have a "juicy" quality to begin with makes life much easier. FA raspberry is one I find screams beverage to me. My favorite slush drinks have that soft almost granular mouth feel along with the cooling component. I think menthol works great and actually enhances flavors like watermelon, grape and raspberry but may distract from things like colas or coladas where you might not want a mint note to creep into your profile and something like polar blast or koolada might serve it better. A recipe I made recently looks something like:

Grapes In The Mist

Grape Flavorah 2.2% Raspberry FA 1% Cactus INW .8% Marshmallow TPA 1% Honeysuckle TPA 1% Arctic Winter FA .6% Sweetener TPA .4%

I have made similar mixes with Loranns Watermelon and OSDIY Blue Raspberry slush. Currently working on a Cherry Cola version with Polar blast as the cooling. For those who like fruit/candies a slush style is a great change of pace. I will typically load up one of these in a tank during the day if I'm on the go and then kick over to some full bodied desserts on a dripper at night to keep my palette from sensitizing to one flavor.

For whatever reason (maybe it is the approach of summer) this slush thread has me all jacked up on slush vapes. After looking through my recent recipes I think I have dissected a stone or base that I have been using that may or may not give you some mileage in your slush endeavors. It is entirely possible that these ideas were put in my head by Concrete Rivers' description on how he conceptualizes this profile. I have used the following stone with several different primary flavors including LA Watermelon, FLV Grape, FA Raspberry, FLV Lime, etc. and the results seem to be pretty consistent. I humbly present my:

Slush Stone/Base:

Cactus INW 1%

Marshmallow TPA 2%

Honeysuckle TPA 1%

Menthol/Koolada .5%

Sweetener .5%

Cactus INW: This provides the syrup base and wetness we are seeking to sell this as a beverage type. The one caveat is that this brings some relatively potent earthy aloe notes with it that need to be counter-balanced with some strong primary flavor choices and use. Of course, since we are making a slushy which is bold and linear this is not too hard to overcome.

Marshmallow TPA: This works two-fold to provide the texture and sweetness of the type of highly blended slush-style drinks that I prefer. It provides the soft thick mouth feel and has the by-product of bringing in an additional sticky sweetness that we need.

Honeysuckle: This is mostly optional and honestly it probably only acts as a mild sweetener at this percentage but it works nice. Something like FA Pear may work as well or better.

Menthol/Koolada: Use whatever you like at the level you like. I like menthol as the mint note enhances things like watermelon, raspberry and grape. There are plenty of cooling options on the market.

Sweetener: I think most recipes will call for some additional sweetener to really take it into slush-land as we are dealing with something that is loaded with fructose syrup in real life. I like .5 ish percent.

Using this base has demystified my own slush development process and made it a little more plug and play. Of course things are always evolving but thus far it has served me well and I would invite you to try it.

An example of a recipe using this base I made recently is:

Blue Razz Slush

Raspberry FA 3%

Raspberry INW 1%

Peach Jcy TPA 2.5%

Cactus INW 1%

Marshmallow TPA 2%

Honeysuckle TPA 1%

Sweetener TPA .5%

Arctic Winter FA .6%

Total 11.6%

The combination of FA and INW raspberry forms a strong primary profile that masks the qualities of the Cactus we don't want to be apparent. The Peach turns the raspberry blue and further strengthens the primary notes. I used menthol as it compliments raspberry.

Thank you for taking my suggestion on this!

I'm sorry I haven't had any time to do.....any..... flavor experimentation lately. My throat's been killing me to the point where I don't even feel like it anymore. Kinda sucks, but hey more time to work on tfw!