Brilliant effort by both teams.

The bad: Bravo. Another flaming custard. It’s INW custard so it cuts down steeping time. But still: a flaming custard. Congratulations on choosing the most interesting colour grey of all greys.

The brilliance: cough medicine or stroke of genius? It takes balls to bring a flavour like cherries to a competition where the consensus seems to be cherry=cough medicine. Now if team blue actually pulled that off (with the help of Almond no doubt), it could give the mix the edge. Hiding the fruit of doom on top of an orange custard makes me really want that.

Extra points: Being left with 99.5 % of a 10 ml bottle of not only FA Cherry but also INW Shisha Orange will certainly make my grandchildren happy, because they’ll inherit a lifetimes worth of those flavourings from me.

Definitely will mix this up.

Taste: 6 Originality: 5 Accessibility: 4 Inspiration: 4

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did but the Inawera Custard isn't the right custard here. The orange is up front and pretty nicely balanced. I find the custard part a bit muddy and the vanilla bourbon seems out of place. I think if this was done with FA Custard or Custard Premium it would be less muddy. I rated the accessibility at 4 because nobody should be made to buy FA Cherry when there are others out there that are much better.

Taste:6 Originality:4 Acessibility:4 Inspiration:2

The idea isn't bad at all, an orange custard with a bit of nuttyness from inw custard and fa almond. Inw custard is known as the shake and vape custard for a reason; instant thickness. But using such a high amount of inw custard in a recipe with layers and a complex profile kind of contrasts with the whole purpose behind that. While it's instantly thick it's going to absolutely muddle your layers using it that high.

The cherry seems like an afterthought for the purpose of conforming to the theme of the competition. Coincidentally it is the only flavor here most people probably wont own and does little other than distracting from a perfectly good orange layer.

Now onto what's good. The orange here seems like it would be quite a winning combo in a lot of applications. I also think this recipe would be absolutely bomb with just some slight tweaks you guys didn't have time to do. I also really dig the profile and would love to see it tackled with more time available.

Taste: 5

Look this is using one of my favorite flavors of all time, INW Custard. I should really like this right? It's disappointingly a meh for me. All I'm really tasting is a sweet orange-cherry. And that's it. The orange is actually decent. The cherry not so much. I really want to like this, given the flavors (except for the Cherry) but I just don't taste much.

Originality: 5

Ive never seen or had a juice with this profile, nor have I tried a similar recipe, so I'd say it's quite unique. Bravo on the profile attempt.

Accessibility: 4

Im taking a single point off for FA Cherry. Why you do this? Otherwise, definitely flavors most mixers should have up their arse..nal

Inspiration: 4

Afterthoughts:

I think the custard may be too high here for its application. There's some definite muting going on, but I'd really like to see an improved version of this. Otherwise, good job on using the time provided to conform within the theme of the showdown.

Brilliant effort by both teams.

The bad: Sugar Cookie/Vanilla swirl - really? I mean there are points for originality. That’s kinda lame.

The brilliance: Hibiscus and bakery? Who would have thought that could work out? Now I don’t know yet, but it seems intriguing. And the more I think about it, the more I want it.

Extra points: The description can only be praised as one of the finest pieces of Vogon poetry I’ve read in a long time. Bravo.

Definitely will mix this up.

Taste: 8 Originality: 5 Accessibility: 4 Inspiration: 5

I'm surprised at how much I like this mix. The Sweet Tangerine and Hibiscus compliment each other very well and put it on top of the mix. The Graham Crust and pistachio offer some much needed texture to the CAP Sugar Cookie. The vanilla swirl bridges those bakeries together nicely. My only criticism is that the pistachio seems to be a little out of place when fresh but I see it settling in nicely with a short steep. I gave this a 4 for accessibility because I probably would have used a more popular pistachio like TFA or FLV.

Taste:8 Originality:3 Accessibility:4 Inspiration:5

With such a tight time constraint it's good to stick to what you know well and it's pretty clear here you guys know these flavors well. There's a decent amount of originality in the way hibiscus was used and the general profile itself. All of these flavors with the slight exception of fa pistachio are pretty commonly used in mixing right now which makes this quite accessible.

As far as taste goes it's pretty close to being on the money. Naturally without time to steep 5 percent sugar cookie can be a little volatile to anyone sensitive to alcohol. And the ratio is a bit off between the jam and the cookie with the jam being just a little too forward. But I can't think of a single other con even while nitpicking. The cookie base is tremendous with fa pistachio and tpa cheesecake graham crust both providing a toothsome crunch to an otherwise soggy cookie. Vanilla swirl does a great job of filling out and thickening the whole thing without muddling anything. I believe it also tames the sweet tangerine quite a bit. Hibiscus does exactly the sweet syrupy thing we all love it for.

I believe you guys fully embraced the theme of the competition not only with the cookie monster reference, but also with hibiscus. It was ideal to use something that wouldn't normally be associated with your profile. Not only did the red team do that, they made that flavor a necessary and intrinsic part of their profile.

Taste: 9

This is a great combination of flavors here. The pistachio adds the perfect amount of nuttiness to the cookie base of Sugar Cookie and TPA Cheesecake Graham. I don't get much in the way of jamminess (which I should with Hibiscus at 2.5) but I do think it is helping the Tangerine out. Now I have a hankering to take Pistachio even higher in some mixing sessions with Sugar Cookie.

Originality: 3

I have to be honest with myself and take a couple points off for this. A jammy cookie isn't totally original, but adding orange into the fold definitely earns a few points.

Accessibility: 4

Basically the same with Doom Pudding, though FA Pistachio makes a bit more sense than FA Cherry.

Inspiration: 5

I don't even know that I need any description for why it fits the theme here. Bravo

Afterthoughts:

I was having an atty/palate/palit/pallat/pilate issue all day while testing this. I'm glad I got it rectified in time (kind of) to be able to offer my opinions on it. This is definitely my personal choice in the showdown here. But great job for both teams!

I am a beginner I've only been mixing for about 2 months going on 3 now. it was so much fun working with u/alfredpudding & u/mlNikon. I took a lot away working with them mainly how to develop a recipe and how there process and the blue teams process was behind the creating a recipe albeit a 30 min crash course, Also learned I could use hibiscus in desert recipes to boost the jammy-ness off a fruit. This was a lot of fun a prop to u/odiedoodah for putting this together I've been working with him on a project and its an honor to be involved and his diligence is very very impressive.

I'm surprised that neither team thought to use "Sesame" - grin

Ah, the beauty of the internet. Not only is everybody a critic, but now we miserable gits have finally the power to shove our opinions down the throats of others. May they gag long and prosper.

Quite unexpectedly, this contest has turned out a lot more exciting and held more surprises than I originally thought. Shoutout to the discord, that was real fun to read.

I won’t be able to comment on the taste of any of the recipes in time, because I drew a blank on the concentrates in my two local vape shops. Neither FA Pistachio nor INW Shisha Orange can be sourced. Vape mail won’t get to me in time.

So, it’s just a bitter old man sitting in his kitchen.

Even before the start, I knew who would win. /u/ID10-T brought the world StrapOns, 1-2-3s, and the mind blowing Mango Blossom Macaron. /u/HocusKrokusl shared Castle Long(er) and the mind blowing Sakura Sweets which took me right back to my childhood.

In the other corner there’s /u/AlfredPudding of 007 fame. I meant to try his Cabin, I meant to try his Grango 123, but somehow those recipes get drowned out in all the noise. So I forget. And then I remember. Sadly Alfred uses some concentrates that are near impossible for me to source, like OoO and JF.

Now there’s the hardest part, trash talking /u/mlNikon Not only does she have to put up with Noted cast and crew on a weekly basis, but she must be one of the nicest persons on discord. Shoot her a message or a shout out, and you can bet you get a short, precise and helpful answer in no time. The only problem is: she hates tobaccos, so I hate her. No hard feelings. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t mixed a single of her recipes.

I’m not sure if /u/ben_gaming and /u/Vishousness are the dark horses or the comic relief. Either way it shows that the community is not only about circle jerks. It enjoys a good train once in a while.

Dear reader, if you made it this far, your eyes are probably bleeding and your mind wandered off in the back room of your brain, where you keep your porn stash and social security number.

I’m talking the stance of your average Joe, who just wants jummy juice.

Both teams played it safe, with CAP Sugar Cookie and INW Custard. It’s probably because they wanted to create something that’s actually tasty and people like. As a lifetime Genesis fan, that’s a deadly sin.

While team blue bent the super tasty CAP Sweet Tangerine into an orange cream flavour with the help of INW Shisha Orange, team red made a jelly with the help of Hibiscus.

FA Pistachio was probably just shoved in the recipe to meet the requirements, and FA Cherry just to show that it can be done.

See where this is going?

At the end of the day, I only give an upvote to one team.

And it’s: team red. There I said it. My inner fan girl just died.

The use of Hibiscus to jamify the Tangerine made all the difference. It made me curious, it made me want to try it and steal the idea and mess with other fruits to see what also works.

The use of FA Cherry doesn’t cut it for me. It’s bold and ballsy, but sadly I’m not going to buy a flavour based on that it’s subpar. Ckemist has said everything that can be said on Cherries, look up his Forbidden Fruit recipe and see for yourself.

So I’ve done it. I betrayed two mixers whose creations changed my vaping experience profoundly.

I will probably leave my tasting notes at some point, when I got hold of all the concentrates.

Now, the pitchforks please. Feel free to set fire to me if it helps.

I can't really see liking either of the recipes, but i think the Blue team probably came closer to something tolerable. Using INW custard in place of CAP NYCC is strange, and the lack of FA Marzipan but presence of vanilla bourrbon is similarly head scratching.. But FA Cherry, when INW Cherries was eligible? Why?

Still, at least it avoided CAP sugar cookie.

Oh yay! Thank you to everyone that mixed this us and voted on it and a special thank you to the judges for putting in the effort to review each of these mixes. /u/AlfredPudding and /u/Vishousness bud! we did it peeps! Thank you so much for helping me with this competition, I really had a blast. I have been waiting for another chance to beat both Kopel and Dave and redeem myself for quite a while and I am glad my patience paid off. It was fun and an honor to compete against the blue team.

once again - please post ALL responses to one of the three replies to the main message - it gunks up the thread with unnecessary clutter
  we should only see THREE responses - the general discussion, the red team, and the blue team - so we can vote