In need of a palate sanity check here: are FLV Back Bar Bitters supposed to taste bitter? I tried them at 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%, and all I get is a mildly sweet oaky flavor that gets a bit oversaturated at 1.5%.
Based on Flavorah's description, I was expecting something close to Angostura Bitters--but I don't get that at all. Do you?
Some notes on bitter:
FA Bitter Wizard - I've never SFT'ed this but it's supposed to be a sweetness-neutralizer, as in to neutralize the inherent sweetness of VG - not to actually add a bitter taste. I have played with it a bit, and it seems to work wonders with tobaccos that are coming across too sweet and with things like Gin that shouldn't be too sweet either.
VT Bitters 0.75% - “Vape Train’s Bitters is our latest product to assist in creating a bitters flavour taste with a bitter mouthfeel. This product is suspended in PG and comes in liquid form ready to use in your next ejuice recipe that’s seeking an authentic bitter note.” It sounds like they’re trying to make a FA Bitter Wizard rather than the bitters you’d put in a cocktail. That’s kind of what’s they’ve done, and then some. It seems like Bitter Wizard actually just sort of helps neutralize the sweetness of VG, this goes a step further and actually tastes bitter, like eating just the white pith of a grapefruit without getting any of the sweet and flavorful part. It even leaves that feeling on your tongue like you’ve just eaten something bitter, like chewing up an aspirin. Even though it completely lacks the spice notes of actual bitters, this could be super useful for all kind of mixes, for zapping any excess sweetness out of tobaccos, making citrus more realistic, providing balance in beverages (like bitters does) and elsewhere. So much fun to be had with this one, seems like it could be an invaluable tool. It might could work for tonic water as it kind of tastes like that, but VT also has a tonic that’s more accurate so if all you want is tonic, do that.
FLV Back Bar Bitters 0.75% - Not really bitter to vape. Although it lacks the bitterness of VT, it has a nice spicy depth to it that VT lacks, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, an long with some floral touch. It has some fruity sweetness before it cuts to a much less sweet aftertaste. Aromatic Bitters should taste of orange peel but this is more like candied orange peel, all the sweetness in here is tied to the orange, and it also has just a bit of something darker underneath, like dried fig but not obviously fig. Something in the prune or raisin family. It tastes like it would be great in a holiday bakery like fruitcake, or for something like mulled wine.
INW Shisha Punch 0.75% - Similar to FLV Back Bar Bitters, but with a more prominent orange peel here compared to FLV’s more prominent spice blend with some orange peel behind it. Also, significantly more clove in this spice blend, but with bits of cinnamon and something else, maybe cardamom or ginger, behind it. Would use for mulled wine or spiced cider. Maybe in a spiced cake like fruit cake. For cocktail bitters I’d mix it with VT Bitters for that real bitter note, but I’d probably use Back Bar Bitters instead of Shisha Punch for that because Back Bar Bitters is more balanced and not so orange-peel-and-clove dominant.
Thanks, adding VT Bitters to my shopping list. From your description, it sounds like it'll be similar to FA Bergamot with a bit more emphasis on the bitter notes.
I still wish there were a straightforward bitter flavoring resembling gentian. Grapefruit/Bergamot/Seville Orange bitterness isn't quite the same, nor is oaky/woody bitterness.
Yes. Kind of. FA Bergamot has that sort of orange-lemon peel thing. There's no citrus to the VT Bitters, it's for real like vaping an aspirin. It was pretty horrible experience to vape as a single flavor but I could certainly see it being an extremely useful tool, there's really nothing like quite like it that I've encountered yet.
I guess I am the weirdo as back bar bitters, to me, is just like angostura bitters. I used it in my old fashioned mix and it's quite accurate in that sense.
> I guess I am the weirdo as back bar bitters, to me, is just like angostura bitters.
No that doesn't make you weird, it just confirms my suspicion that this is one of those weird flavors that taste different to different people. There are quite a few such flavors, as it turns out.
Angostura bitters would be asking a bit much. A lower-tier bitters, like Alpenbitter, perhaps? I'd need to try them side by side tho... I don't have the flavor memorized for low end bitters.
The bitter ingredient in both is the same, gentian root. It's just more concentrated in the former than in the latter. Unfortunately the substance responsible for its bitterness, gentiopicrin, is not stable at vaping temperatures. Apparently there just aren't many bitter tasting molecules that are safe to vape.
Upon further reflection, I would describe FLV Back Bar Bitters as old oak barrel that's been used to age port wine. I'm now finding that BBB does combine very nicely with FA Bergamot into something resembling aromatic bitters minus the actual bitter taste.
FW Ecaffeine
Caffeine is used as a 'flavor' at times, it adds bitterness. That's basically the only thing it's useful for in vaping. Other than placebo effect, that is.
> FW E-Caffeine
Holy shit, thanks--that looks like exactly what I need! (And here I've been completely ignoring FW, having gotten the impression that every flavor they offer has a superior counterpart from another flavor house.)
> Other than placebo
Which would you recommend, FA Placebo or INW Placebo? :-)
Also worth noting, I found this highly interesting read while searching for info on inhalable caffeine:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150013695A1/en