In the 3 years I've been DIY-ing, I've shied away from mint/menthol profiles, but was curious about the 'cooling' effect this additive claimed to provide, so I picked some up during a Black Friday sale last year.
Finally used it in a recipe at .5% with 1% Cactus and 4% Cap Sweet Guava. Holy yum! Now I'm excited to try it with other fruits, lemon and watermelon, especially.
No matter what I order I always include a large bottle of WS-23. That combined with the Profile RDA (already a cool vape), and enough fruit flavours to sink a small ocean liner, is how I enjoy my post-cigarette life.
But it's so concentrated why would you ever need to restock every order lol.
I started at 0.5%. After a while I mixed at 1%. Then 2%. When i hit around 4.5% it was starting to get a bit expensive and I thought this is never going to stop! So I set myself a limit of 3% from that point on. With the option of adding 0.5% FW Menthol to that if needed.
I have about a cup of cooling agents, at least. Probably more WS-23 than anything of the others, but WS-3, WS-5, FA polar blast, menthol, and INW eucalyptus mint all have their roles. Sometimes when you have a coolant with a offtaste, you will find there are profiles where that offtaste fits. And sometimes you'll find there are profiles where actual menthol is part of the answer. But yeah you need coolants for some recipes. Don't believe me? Put a colld glass of lemonade in the microwave and get it boiling, then drink that. It ain't lemonade anymore, it's NeoCitran. So f you want lemonade, it needs to be cold.
The brain takes temperature into account when judging the taste of something. A cup of coffee that's properly warm is enjoyable. Ice cold, it'll help you stay awake in part because the taste would haunt you. A piss warm can of cream soda is only even slightly acceptable if you're painfully thirsty. Fruits are (with rare exceptions) best cold. (Usually the exceptions involve being drowned in caramel, or some sort of syrup, and some sort of pastry being involved.
bro have you never tried cooked apples?
There are a few dishes that use cooked apples, usually with a syrup/caramel type thing... Apple Crisp (essentially apple pie that isn't troubled with a crust, and has a crumble topping) is the better one, then there's apple pie. And there's that stuff for babies..apple sauce? It's also useful in cooking (I like using it ahen making oatmeal muffins). But that's about the extent of good dishes that involve cooking apples. And as far as just a plain apple, one that's colder than room temperature will (all else being equal) have the more crisp texture and the better flavor. There ars varieties that are not really enjoyable on their own, And should be used in a pie or whatever, but...
Pepper & caraway pork chops with cooked apples and onions is excellent. I make it pretty often; you caramelize diced apples and onions and crust the chops with crushed black pepper and caraway seed, then push the apples and onions to the outer edge of the pan and sear the chops, then finish in a medium oven and deglaze the pan with a little apple cider vinegar. So good.
Have you tried koolada to compare? They are supposedly similar but ws is praised far more and it's more concentrated. I didn't like koolada to begin with so I'm not sure if ws is for me anyways.
I've never tried it, but from I understand, coolada is menthol. WS gives the cooling effect, but without flavor.
Koolada’s other name is actually WS-3. Like WS-23, Koolada is also primarily a cooling effect and different from menthol. General consensus is that WS-23 is just slightly more potent.
It doesn't have any mint. I'm old, I bought it long ago before ws23 got its reputation. Koolada was marketed as menthol without the mint, just the cool. I can testify that I don't taste any mint, but tbh I'm not a fan of menthol to begin with so it's effect is still lost on me. I thought it might be an alternative to menthol that I'd actually like but it seems like it's more for people who like menthol to begin with. I was under the impression that it was an older part of the ws lineage.
I dont like koolada either. never tried ws-23...should I bother buying it?
I use it at 1% with 5% Cap sweet strawberry and 2.5% FA strawberry. I also tried adding 1.5% TPA sour but I can't even tell it's there. It's really good but I think I'm gonna either up the strawberry a bit or switch the FA strawberry with TPA strawberry ripe, maybe with a bit of sweetener. Just seems to need a bit of a boost, but overall really good for me.