One Prick Two Prick Bad Prick Blue Prick

TASTE:8

We're obviously not grading "accuracy" here. Cool, non-representative mixes are neat and this is pretty good? I think it's a well built experience over all. The central pairing, cactus and blueberry, is surprisingly tasty together. You definitely get a bit of a prickly pear juiciness, some cleaner aloe notes, and a darker full blueberry flavor. I dig that. 2% Bilberry? Sure, why not. It's dark and bold and everything else in the recipe wrestles it into submission.

The other stuff here largely helps with contrast and vapeability. The Blood Orange lifts it up a bit and the dragonfruit sweetens and blends. That touch of sweetener brings a bit of a candy sheen to the recipe. The cooling largely works. I feel like ws-23 has a tendency to kind of thin out the vape experience? The actual tactile cooling is at a good level, but I feel like I needed just a bit more base vibrancy to really hammer the flavor through the cooling.

But the Swirl. OH GOD THE SWIRL. This recipe wouldn't work without the the swirl bringing body and pulling everything together. Swirl covers most sins, and the extra hit of vanilla works strangely well with everything else going on. 4% is fine and if you don't think so you hate fun.

Ultimately, it's a well crafted recipe and the vape experience is very solid. I wasn't floored but I also can't knock the hustle. It's going to be a bit polarizing, but I feel like everything here works together. My biggest knock would be based on the fact that I am a trash person and I wanted something a bit sweeter and more saturated and with a more defined funky counterpoint. Maybe the swirl overachieved. DON'T YOU DARE LOWER IT.

ORIGINALITY: 4

This is weird, but I feel like it doesn't fall into the trap of weird for the sake of weird. It takes a central flavor pairing that's fairly uncommon, and expands on it. It does the smart/safe thing a bit, and wraps that interesting pairing around the heavily pleasant and sort of mundane swirl and the cooling has definitely been done with odd profiles. With that said, I'm not really sure I'd want to vape a "5" in this category, so it's probably for the better.

ACCESSIBILITY:5

All of these flavors are available at Bull City and each one is worth picking up.

INSPIRATION:4

I really wanted to give this a 5 for the sheer antipathy involved, I truly did. All of your heroes were assholes and the "great man" theory of history is bullshit. Kill your idols. But.... while this is a good subversion of the contest theme, it could have rhymed? I feel like it captures some of the more imaginative properties of the theme, but it should be thematically consistent with the dark heart of the matter. For what it's worth, I was expecting the 2% Bilberry to act as something like a bitter, musky counterpoint but this recipe is crafted to mitigate that. It's probably a better recipe for it, but I don't know if this actually reads as all that dark without context from seeing the ingredients. Whatever.

Taste:

To me, I pick up a mentholated soap dipped in some Bilberry. It's not "bad" per say. There is something intriguing about how the high amount of Bilberry pairs up with the Cactus and vanilla. The large amount of Sweetness also helps make the pairing more palatable. But the recipe is somewhat of a muddled mess, with no clear imaging or distinction as to what it is. I think the Vanilla is also a bit overused. It does help hide the major flaws behind the flavor pairings, but at 4%, it can essentially hide the holocaust. In terms of accuracy, I also think it misses the mark there. Again, it's more a soapy, medicinal mixture, as opposed to a prickly pear with dark berries. If you're looking for a "pleasant" flavor, something that is quite vague and non-distinct, you might enjoy this. As for me, I think the flavor is more a chore to choke down than it is a pleasure to vape. (I'm also pretty sure they were just trying to get points from /u/ConcreteRiver)

>4 / 10

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Originality:

One of the biggest disappointments in this recipe (as well as the other) is the lack of adventure in the flavor. With the inspiration holding so much potential, I expected to see really off-the-wall type stuff. But what we got was a circa-2015 Dragonfruit-Vanillin-Fest. All that it's missing is a visit from TFA Strawberry Ripe. I don't want to be too hard in this specific case, mainly because there is some interesting play going on with the Bilberry. To me, it's what really sets the tone of the recipe, and using it much higher than normal, seems to drastically help the recipe out. I just wish the recipe took some tougher chances in terms of overall profile. 

>2 / 5

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Accessibility:

Easy to get flavors, that almost any flavor house should have. Also, the curveball making things whole numbers helps anyone scared of decimals.

>5 / 5

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Inspiration:

/u/ID10-T's twisted and sick mind really helped them out here. I love the dark use of Seuss, and trying to emulate that in flavor. I'm not sure juice was worth the squeeze in this specific case (and I understand the time constraints make things even more difficult), but I would LOVE to see a finalized version of this take with some clear imaging and development. Someone please, take this idea and run with it. 

>3 / 5

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TOTAL: 14 / 25

Taste: 8/10

From the second I started mixing this I had a bad feeling about that Bilberry funk getting in the way but due to the semi-pandering sweetness and healthy dose of coolant they managed cover it well. Speaking of pandering; Vanilla Swirl @ 4% and we’re here for a good time, not for a long time. They were on the clock, so I get that shake and vapability is key and for that, it definitely works well to bring body and more than a little creaminess. It plays well with the blueberry duo which just barely manages to remain a top note in a rather crowded consortium of flavors.

These recipes somehow managed to share several flavors but use them to an entirely different effect. Obviously the Dragonfruit and Blood Orange were used much lower and the contrasting flavors lend themselves to a more nuanced overall flavor with a more abstract feel.

Originality: 3/5

It’s pandering was the downfall in this category. While the choices might be appropriate for the inspiration, the sweetener and coolant feel like they were added as a safety net.

Accessibility: 4/5

While all the flavors are easy to find, they used 6 of them and 2 additives, so I docked one point.

Inspiration: 4/5

It’s amazing how /u/ID10-T managed to turn a fun inspiration into something so dark and yet the description itself was entirely intertwined with his unique interpretation of the theme. And at the same time the recipe itself comes across as bright and weird but is destined to become muddled and muted the longer you vape it; a tragedy befitting of the recipes description.

Overall: 19/25

While the recipe is muddled and weird I find myself wanting more. It’s probably just my WS-23 addiction talking but if I were to mix up one of the recipes again, this would be the one (for all the wrong reasons)

> place

Well, the description is on par with last year's Hot Yoga Wife. Not sure about the recipe tho....

Thing 1, Thing 2, Thing 3, Thing 4

TASTE:5

I'm giving this ultimate cop-out taste rating. I don't think it's unpleasant but it needs some love. The first thing I end up thinking is weird sherbet. That blood orange is nice and vibrant and you do get a touch of vanilla from the swirl. I'm cool with all of that. A weird twist on sherbet sounds pretty seussian. But the weird parts aren't quite cohering for me. For whatever reason, the cactus sticks out quite a bit in this recipe. Just looking at the recipe, I'm thinking it's maybe doing something with the higher dragonfruit percentage. I don't think the cactus sticking out is necessarily bad, but there isn't much around for it to crash into. You've got some top end bright orange and that low-down cactus and not much in the middle to bridge it or really soak it up. The dragonfruit isn't really adding much to the profile, and the blending is making everything a bit muddy and confusing. I like the idea of the recipe, but I'd go for a much fuller citrus profile than just the thinner FW Blood Orange to really beef this up and make it more compelling.

ORIGINALITY:4

This theme kind of lends itself to originality, and yeah these probably aren't the first flavors anyone is going to put together. I think you may have leaned a bit too hard on the idea of originality here though. Like the horse was following the cart because you knew you wanted something weird but didn't have a solid base you were building off of. But you had a half hour or whatever, so yeah. Just take the 4.

ACCESSIBILITY:5

All of these flavors are available at Bull City and each one is worth picking up.

INSPIRATION:2

The 1/2/3/4 structure is fun, and the end result is definitely on the abstract side. The muddiness of the recipe sort of swamps the kind of technicolor nonsense you'd expect. Naming this recipe the way you did, you expect some distinct flavor staging and definition, and I'm not really getting that. So maybe the recipe lets down the inspiration. It's an ouroboros.

Well... Glad i didn't place a bet now.

Taste:

I'm going to be pretty rough here. I do want to state that I understand the team started off with some heavy disadvantages. Please don't take any of this personal, just trying to be objective as possible. So same with the previous recipe, it seems the mixture of Cactus and Dragonfruit brings out a soapy flavor for me. What makes this recipe even worse is the lack of any imaging, coupled with the extremely soft nature of the mix. It's a bit vegetal, with almost a light cucumber or celery note right on the tail end, that doesn't help push the flavor along in anyway. I'm also not quite sure what it's "trying" to be or emulate. And if the flavor is meant to pull that out from the user, it certainly fails on that end as well. It's honestly just quite boring, soft, and lifeless. If you like a soft, lightly vegatal and medicinal vape, this might be for you.

>2 / 10

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Originality:

I'd say originality is also lacking here. Even more so in this case mainly because even the use of specific ingredients seems quite "safe"

>1 / 5

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Accessibility:

If there's one thing this recipe has, it's accessibility

>5 / 5 

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Inspiration:

The 1-2-3-4 idea is pretty cool. I think if the %'s lended themselves to the flavor of the recipe it would've been even more of a hit. But overall, the recipe, the idea, the surrounding nature of it all, is quite uninspired. 

>1 / 5

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TOTAL: 9 / 25

Taste: 6/10

The first thing that stood out is how present the Cactus is, despite being at a reasonably low percentage in contrast to the other flavors (especially Dragonfruit) it stands out and refuses not to be noticed--certainly not the worst thing for an abstract recipe. The Blood Orange and Vanilla Swirl are a safe bet, melding together nicely to form a somewhat muddled orange cream that’s not particularly bright and sweet but balanced enough for a version 1 recipe (especially with the given timeframe) And then you have Dragonfruit being used far outside its role as an additive and firmly in the realm of flavor. I see this being the most divisive component of the recipe and one where I might be a little biased (see: flair) I love it and bumped the score just for the risk factor of taking it that high--and it also manages to play off the other flavors well, at the same time.

Originality: 4/5

When I saw the theme the only thing obvious that sprung to mind was Swedish Fish (one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish) but with all the places you could go with a Suess inspired recipe, originality was kind of a given. They didn’t bring anything to the table that was played out or fall back on too-obvious choices/pairings.

Accessibility: 5/5

All 4 flavors are easy to find and if not essential, potentially useful to most mixers.

Inspiration: 2/5

With such a short amount of time left after the recipe was finalized, I think the name and description were rushed out of necessity and don’t really tie in with the abstract and whimsical flavor of the recipe itself.

Overall: 17/25

I have to give a lot of credit to this team, in particular, for being handed a curveball before the competition even began. Having to replace a teammate at the last minute and having to be the last minute replacement is no easy task and I think they handled it well and carried on nicely. +1 was added to one of the scores, I’ll let you guess which of them.

The lack of trash talking is not amusing!

u/OdieDoodah - FIX!

Good luck to both teams tomorrow, looks like an awesome matchup!

It's fantastic that we could get the truly wonderful and famous and talented Irish singer songwriter on board to help with the judging this week!! I mean Watermark was good, but damn that Orinoco Flow... just incredible work.

So, who's the oddsmaker around here? What's the line? I may put a twenty on team blue if the payoff is right...

You have the point totals mixed up and under the wrong teams.

Where in the rules was tfa vanilla swirly a required ingredient?