Alright, it’s been a while since I’ve made a thread for a recipe, but I wanted to do this one because I think it keeps with the spirit of a Boba’s Bounty clone. All the interesting stuff comes from a forum post.
- FE Captain- 1.5%
- FE Desert Ship- 2%
- FE Tobacco Absolute- 1%
- HS Magic Mix- 4%
- CAP Graham Cracker- 1.5%
Steep at least a week before writing this off as an absolute failure. It’s not perfect, but it gets what I like to call “close enough” after a week.
I really wanted to just get this damn thing off my chest. Over the last few months I have fallen in to 3 or 4 Boba’s Bounty traps, and I just want the cycle to end. I’m also getting low on the 30 ml I bought, and I don’t plan on buying another.
HS Magic Mix: This is my raisin note. At first I didn’t really taste it with the real thing. I thought everyone was crazy. But after a few months of forgetting about it after my first round of frantic clone attempts, I licked some off the back of my hand, and there she was. I’ll be damned, it has a raisin note.
FE Tobacco Absolute: Many have claimed that there had to be an NET in there, but I am throwing my hat in to say I think it’s a TA. I would assume that the TA was the ingredient that was no longer available and that’s why it went for its little vacation. I also believe that when AVE claims to use 40% flavoring, it is because they are making a super weak concentration of the Tobacco Absolute and using it at like 30%. I’m going to make sure the foil doesn’t fall off my head here, but I also have a hunch that they are diluting their TA in PG. They can consider it a “flavor” and still get away with saying they have no “added” PG. I mixed this up max VG and it just wasn’t quite right. 60/40 was much better. There was also the GCMS that Bobbysavage had done on some Boba’s, and it came out pretty much 60/40. I don’t think I trust any of the other results of that sample, but I’d think that the VG/PG ratio would be easier to determine. Just pure speculation, really. Just wanted to throw some of my own conspiracy theories out there to build the lore ;)
CAP Graham Cracker: It’s rich and has a hint of cinnamon. I think a lot of the flavor bending and confusing notes comes from the way all the tobaccos blend with this graham cracker.
The real pain in the ass part of trying to do a true clone was finding out what flavors were available at the time it was created in 2009. ECX was around back then, but I used the way back machine to look at the site in 2009, and the only DIY stuff it seemed like they had was PG, VG, and menthol crystals. The flavors that ECX sells as FE and everyone else sells as Super Concentrates I believe come from the Chinese company Xi’an Taima, and the only post on ECF asking about them was from 2010, so for the sake of just being done with this shit finally, I’m going to say they were probably available if you were creative back then. I did find a LinkedIn profile for the company that stated that they were founded in November of 2008, so there’s that. If everyone else uses Black Mile or Black Mile Plus, then I think I’ll be ok throwing out my own ideas on some FE tobaccos to use.
FE Captain: Not only does this flavor give me some of the same vibes that Boba’s does, it’s also pretty complex on its own. There’s so many things happening with it that others seem to pick out of Boba’s that I think I’d be stupid not to use it. Is there caramel? Vanilla? Coconut? Pipe tobacco? Chocolate? All depends on what your tongue wants to taste that day.
FE Desert Ship: When I first tested this I thought it was just begging to be thrown in a Boba’s clone. It’s got a pretty generic FE tobacco base with maybe a hint of some spices.
So the Captain takes care of those Base note subtleties, and the Desert Ship does the top note spices. The graham cracker blends them together, and also brings the raisin in to more of a bakery type of raisin, if that makes sense. And the Tobacco Absolute provides the real tobacco taste with a hint of ash.
And now I can rest easy knowing that I have thrown my name in to the bottomless pit of failed Boba’s Bounty cloners.
What I’m really interested in here is for people to tell me what tastes off with it, what they did to fix it, all that good stuff that you usually find in Boba’s threads. I think I’ve seen just about every clone recipe there is, but has anyone had one that was close? I know that there was the Monthly Clone challenge just last month on this juice, and I stayed suspiciously quiet on that because I was in one of my “no, I’m not getting sucked in to this again” months. But I got sucked in again, and putting this bad boy out there is my only escape now.
I suppose I will throw out another recipe real quick here too since it is what started me down the last rabbit hole. It’s Boba’s-esque, but instead of a dark, raisin note, it’s got a brighter fruit note with the same kind of base.
- CAP Graham Cracker- 1.5%
- FE Tobacco Absolute- .5%
- FE Tobacco- .75%
- HS Deluxe- 2.5%
I recently got FE Black Mile+ since a lot of older Bobas clones had it. It's been years since I've the original (haven't tried the new version) but all them seemed quite a ways off. This looks promising, so I'll definitely get those other FE Baccos on my next ecigx order. Even if I can't recall precisely how the original was, this still sounds tasty from the description. Also reminded me to try their absolute, which I heard good things about.
Yeah, when i finally tried Boba’s I was kind of surprised that everyone was suggesting Black Mile +. Didn’t really taste anything in there that was like that.
> It's been years since I've the original
That’s really the target audience with this. If you got mine side by side with the real thing, they’re different. If it’s been a while, though, I think you could convince yourself it’s close.
> Didn’t really taste anything in there that was like that.
Glad it's not just me. I figured it may've just been my nostalgia making me think it was much different / better than those clones. That's what I found for most of my other favorite ejuices starting out. Also probably because they were designed for the common ego clearomizer setup back then.
So turns out I forgot the HS Magic Mix, but got everything else for your Fetts reward. Is the Magic Mix only serving as a raisin note? In my stash the closest sub I can think is INW Smoked Plum and Smoke and Prunes. I like Smoked Plum, think ~1% is good for a earthy prune/raisin backnote. Think that'd be a decent enough sub for the time being?
I do like INW AM4A (including in some Bobas clones), and even detect a raisin-ish dark fruity backnote. Might try that as a sub as well since I'm less looking for complete fidelity, just a good reminiscent vape. I enjoy your mixes and recommendations so I'm all ears if you have any other flavors you'd put in place of Magic Mix. I've got most all the top 200 flavors on ATF as well as baccos from FA, FLV, TFA and INW.
From what you’ve listed, I think the most interesting one would be Am4a because it’s got a lot of the same interesting complexities that Boba’s has, though it doesn’t taste like the Magic Mix. I wouldn’t go over 2% with it though. You don’t by chance have the pre-reformulated Fortuna Strike do you? That would be an excellent substitute.
This may have been said elsewhere in the past, but I've gotta know.
Does anyone else think that the flavoring percentages should be much higher? This juice was made when cartomizers were a new concept. People were buying 510 atomizers and "de-bridging" them with needle nose pliers to make a primitive dripping atomizer. Serious vapers used eGo batteries and enthusiasts had modified flashlights and pipe fittings from home depot.
This is a juice from another world.
I just got my supplies in the mail and mixed up a quick batch. The initial scent is really promising so I'm excited to give this a try next week.
I hope it does not disappoint! I know that it’s not perfect side by side, but for this one I settled with “close enough” to save my sanity.
Ok, mixed this up and I let it steep only 2 days because fuck it. This is a clone of pre Boba's bounty recipe change, which to me is even better! I think it's spot on from what I remember, in fact the first time I hit it in my Dvarw it brought back all kind of memories of cartos and Boba's. I think people might think this is not that close to current Boba's but if they remembered the pre recipe Boba's they would think it's 95% close. I did not like it when they changed recipes because to my pallet it brought some floral notes and the raisin and graham cracker took a back seat.
To me I get classic Boba's from this, that is:
- Raisin
- Graham Cracker
- Tobacco
- Hint of vanilla
Fantastic job u/ChecmicalBurnVictim, I pretty much only vape your stuff. I mix 240 ml of duke, brigade and now this every month since I only do MTL.
Edit: Now I will experiment with banana flavors because I think it's only 1% some kind of banana flavor to make it Gorilla juice.
Super happy to hear it does some justice! So far you’re the first feedback I’ve gotten, but now I can rest easy because, even if you’re the only one, someone thought it was close :)
Did Gorilla Juice have the raisin note, or did it replace that with the Banana? I’ve never had it, but I’ve heard about it and my first thought was to swap the HS Magic Mix with HS BD Tobacco since that is basically to banana what Magic Mix is to raisin. Might be worth a shot ;)
It did have the raisin note but not as strong I'd say it was 50/50 raisin/banana. I'll go buy HS BD Tobacco right now actually and play with it need to re-up flavors for the Duke anyway.
Edit: I also think 60/40 is spot on. I think if you upped the VG more it be too sweet.
I mixed this up today and let it steep for 10 minutes. To be completely honest, I am not a big fan of the smokey/ashy notes, and there are plenty in this recipe. I think the FE Tobacco Absolute is just a little too much for me. But I also have to give the disclaimer that I did not know what to expect. I have never tried the original, and there was literally no steeping.
I mixed up a second batch and reduced the FE TA to 0%, and now, this is much more pleasant to me. There are still some ashy notes present, I guess from the other FE's, but this is much more enjoyable to me. I'll let these two batches steep for a while with the hope that the ashy taste mellows down a bit and that some of the raisin/graham cracker notes develop a little more.
Mixed up 240 mls of this and it's been steeping for a couple weeks now. I ran a tank of it at one week and another last night at two weeks. The tobaccos were still a little floral at 1 week. Now they've mellowed out and taste much better but the TA is very forward with the kind of wet grassy flavor. I'll report back in another couple weeks.