PART 2

Noted Ep. 174: PUMPKIN (ft. Fresh03)

Nude Nicotine Pumpkin Velvet: Mostly spice. Pretty good spice blend. Cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, all spice. Has a bit of a tyre off note. Maybe if it was used at a lower % or if it was vaped at a lower wattage it wouldn't be so present? Not a lot of pumpkin. Seems to be covered by the spices. A little bit of a velvety feel. Pretty smooth.

29.37

FLV Pumpkin Bread: Would be ranked higher. At 0.5-1% it's not spot on pumpkin bread, but it's pretty close. It's kind of like a hippy pumpkin bread. It's dark. Pumpkin bread is supposed to be like a banana bread, but with pumpkin. Can turn it into that sort of pumpkin bread. ID10-T tested at 2% and 3%. Starts being really good at around 0.5%. Above 1% it turns into a yeasty monstrosity. Goes rye-ish and just really weird.

32.00

Bickford Pumpkin: Not really pumpkin. But a pretty enjoyable flavour. More like a squash blossom, which tastes like a yellow squash, but more mild. A little sweeter. Gently floral, but in a nice way. Delicately floral, not perfumey. Could be considered pumpkin-y enough to work as the small amount of pumpkin you'd put in a bakery - if that floral note was covered with spice. Nice, thick body. ID10-T thought it would work as the base for some sort of late summer, early autumn type floral recipe. Seems like it would pair well with FLV Virginia.

34.15

LA Pumpkin: NOT SAFE TO VAPE! Oil based flavour, not water soluable. At 0.25% it's a nicely balanced pumpkin spice blend. Nice balance of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, ginger. Could use it in cooking applications, but not for vaping.

36.42

HS Pumpkin Pie: Emily and Fresh would have ranked it higher. ID10-T doesn't think it really tastes like PP. But it vapes really well, silky. Fluffy while being a little rich. Extremely light spice note, nowhere near enough. Needs something like FLV Pumpkin Spice or FLV Eggnog. No crust. Very mellow, pleasant. But bland. Emily thought it tastes like pumpkin puree. Rich, creamy, buttery. Rediculously smooth. Fresh thought it had a creamy and fluffy mouthfeel. Pretty good pumpkin pie filling flavour. Pretty weak for HS. Need to use about 5%.

38.24

OOO Pumpkin: Fresh thought it's more like squash than pumpkin. ID10-T got a cereal note. Not a bad cereal, almost like a frosted Cheerios with pumpkin and pumpkin spice. Like Pumpkin Os from Trader Joe's, which has actual pumpkin in. Like a pumpkin Cheerios type cereal with pumpkin spice. Tasted more like cereal than pumpkin. But he really enjoyed it. Could maybe crisp it up with something like WF Puff Cereal, add some milk/cream.

41.15

WF Pumpkin Candy: Supposed to be a white chocolate candy. Like Candy Corns in a different shape. WF does taste a bit like that. Not inauthentic. Almost has some of that waxy outside. Like the same waxiness FW White Chocolate has. Got dark and a bit maple-y at 3%. At 2% the dark maple-y note wasn't present. Has a candy corn type sweetness. Does a pretty good job capturing the elements of a pumpkin candy. Cheeba got the maple note at 4%. Could be perfect for a maple bar recipe? It's pretty delightful. Could maybe use it for a slightly waxy style candy coating? Emily tested at 2% and 3%. Cheeba tested at 4%.

43.19

Fairy's Finest Pumpkin: Powdered sugar with some soft pumpkin and some clove back notes. Very reminiscent of OOO Powdered Sugar, which is an excellent flavour, but with some pumpkin and a little clove. Very sweet, a similar level of sweetness to OOO Powdered Sugar. It's pleasant enough and could be used to add a little pumpkin to a bakery. Might be good in something like a pumpkin infused cupcake? That dry, sweet confectioners sugar flavour would work as part of the icing. There's enough real pumpkin to give the cake some pumpkin-ness. There's a little bit of clove, but would need to add some nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger to make a full PS. This might be the perfect partner to FLV Pumpkin Bread? Would probably brighten it up quite a bit.

45.57

OOO Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake: Different PS to OOO Pumpkin Spice. Accurate, no off notes. Thick, sweet. The main note is a cream that is just cheesy enough for a cheesecake. A little light spice top note. Not enough to be able to pick out the individual spices. But does taste like a touch of a PS blend in a cheesecake. A little of a non-descript bakery in the finish. Not really a definitive graham, but not a plain pie crust type bakery either. Good, but want more of every element. Maybe if % was increased it would fill out more? Has a kind of watered down one shot quality. Seems like it would be an excellent flavour to build a PS Cheesecake around if increasing % doesn't help. There's nothing wrong with it. Has no actual pumpkin flavour. Maybe could add some? Tested at 3%

48.18

Also discussed OOO Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake on Cheesecake episode, Ep. 165: Previous notes on OOO Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake - No pumpkin spice. Same cheesecake note as OOO VCCC. Tested at 5% Previous notes on OOO Vanilla Custard Cheesecake - more of a really good cream cheese frosting. No custard, no cheesecake, not a lot of vanilla, no crust. Not strong and your face flavourful, even at 5%. Sam suspected muting at 5%. Got light vanilla cream notes, soft vanilla, not a lot of cream cheese. Shines in a recipe, but not a great SF. Tastes like how LA Cream Cheese Icing smells. Sweet with a cream cheese icing vibe.

Flavor Jungle Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake (one shot): (Discussed on Cheesecake episode, Ep. 165) Pretty good. PS, which is a little heavy on the nutmeg. Would be better if it was more balanced. Needs more cinnamon, ginger. A little less nutmeg. Has about the right amount of clove. Creamy and thick middle, with a little cheesecake tang. Buttery graham crust base that tastes suspiciously like TFA Cheesecake Graham Crust. Sugar lips finish. Would prefer less sucralose pre-added. If you don't want to vape sucralose this wouldn't be a good option. A good cheesecake. Pretty good for a oneshot. But could probably mix a better one from scratch.

51.15

VSO Pumpkin: Should either be ranked third or first. Best and easily the most authentic pumpkin flavour. A baked pumpkin. Really tastes like pumpkin pie filling without the eggs, heavy cream and most of the spice. But very authentic to the pumpkin part of PP filling. Has a hint of a warm spice note, but needs more. FLV Pumpkin Spice would be a perfect choice. Has the same thick and silky, yet fluffy texture as HS Pumpkin Pie. Could perhaps do with being a bit darker, it's a bit bright. Could fix that by mixing a little custard with it, would add the egginess and creaminess of PP filling. Has bright top notes as a little bbase-y sweetness. But needs to be fluffed up in the middle, which a custard would do. Only need a small amount of custard so could use any custard you wanted. Or Fresh recommends using a little bit of your favorite cheesecake. Cheesecake will add everything it is missing for PP filling. Fresh tried pairing it with some WF Strawberry Cheesecake SC. It was a bit weird for a few days then turned into a really great PP. The Pumpkin, even at a low % covered the strawberry and the cheesecake filled in all the gaps. There is no other pumpkin flavour that comes remotely close to doing what this does. ID10-T is going to make a Snickerdoodle style cookie recipe with VSO Pumpkin. Fresh used it in a pumpkin donut with Twinkie filling.

55.28

FW Pumpkin Spice: If you can't get FLV Pumpkin Spice then FW is a good alternative. More pleasant as a SF than FLV because of the creamier base and it's sweeter. At 0.75% it's lacking in ginger and is perhaps a little heavier on the cinnamon to be totally accurate. But it does taste like PS. No off notes. Nutmeg comes in nicely and clearly behind the cinnamon. The clove is present, but more subdued. Which is good, too much clove can easily ruin it. Dry and a little woody up front, which is normal for a spice. Then has a creamy, almost buttery, full base- which would probably fit almost anywhere. No pumpkin flavour at all. ID10-T tested at 0.75%

1.00.48

FLV Pumpkin Spice: The perfect PS flavour. Nice balance of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and clove. Can pick them all out. Very deep and rich. As a SF it's a little dry and a little harsh. But averagely so for a spice flavour. FLV do all the individual spices that are in PS so well. FLV Rich Cinnamon, FLV Clove, FLV Eggnog (for nutmeg), FLV Ginger. So not a huge surprise that FLV PS is so good. Don't use too high. Fresh ruined the flavour for himself and now can't see it in the same way. 0.75% is probably around the max. ID10-T tested at 1%, was harsh. Plenty of flavour at 0.25-0.5%.

1.03.07

Summary: Just get VSO Pumpkin and FLV Pumpkin Spice!

SSA Cranberry: (Discussing in full on next week's episode) 'Damn!' Judging by Fresh's expression it's very, very good?! Fresh recommends 1.5% as a starting %.

1.08.06

PART 1

Noted Ep. 174: PUMPKIN (ft. Fresh03)

(Episode aired on 27th October 2020)

(Ranked from worst to first)

NF (Nature's Flavors) Pumpkin: Clove scented hand soap. Very clove-y. A bit floral in a perfumey way. Soapy base- not just ID10-T and his soap sensitivity either. Really tastes like soap. Some other spice behind the clove, like nutmeg or maybe anise. Clove is part of pumpkin spice, but it should be well balanced.

8.24

common issue with a lot of these flavours is an overly strong clove note.

OOO Pumpkin Pie: Yucky! Old, curdled, whipped cream blended with some pumpkin spice. No pie crust or pumpkin filling. Whipped cream tastes like it's sat out in a warm room for an extended period of time and has become a bit spoiled. Bordering on butiric and vomitus. It's sour. Maybe OOO meant it to be a supplementary flavour to OOO Pumpkin? So the combo would make a pumpkin pie? But according to Fresh OOO Pumpkin isn't too great either.

9.42

LB Pumpkin Pie: Better is vaped at a lower wattage, around 20-25w. Has a strong off note of tyres. There are other flavours that have that same tyre-like off note and it disappears at lower wattages. Like the majority of coffee vapes, it's not best vaped at higher wattages. Not a great pumpkin pie anyway. Has a good smoothness, like pumpkin pie. Kind of creamy. They overdid the spices. Fresh found the tyre off note like burning tyres. ID10-T vaped it at 40w and didn't think it tasted like burning tyres, but like the smell of walking into a tyre shop. That note was fairly up front and kind of nauseating. Tested at 8%

12.02

CAP Pumpkin Pie Spice: A terrible nutmeg with a little bit of clove. Far too much nutmeg. ID10-T got a bit of a burning paper off note. Fresh thought there was a burnt note.

14.34

HC (Health Cabin) Pumpkin Pie: Fresh didn't think it was that bad. Thought it was like a squashed up pumpkin. ID10-T didn't get any pumpkin spice, no custard-y pumpkin filling, no bakery notes. ID10-T tested at 1%. Fresh tested at 0.5%

16.14

RF Pumpkin Pie SC: Mostly nutmeg, maybe a hint of something else. Maybe cinnamon? Dark brown sugar and a touch of some sort of fruit that tastes cooked. Not really pumpkin pie, not a full pumpkin spice blend. No crust at all. Fresh thought it may be a good starting point for a PP recipe? It has some of the right notes, has the brown sugar. The touch of weird fruit could easily be covered up with pumpkin.

17.06

OOO Ginger Pumpkin Spice Latte: The ginger isn't that forward. It's balanced in with the other spices. Actually has a balanced pumpkin spice flavour. Nice, medium bodied, milky cream. The coffee is just dirt. Spicy dirt with cream. Could maybe add another coffee flavour that sits in the right place to cover up that dirt? But would probably be easier to build a PS latte from scratch.

18.30

OOO Pumpkin Spice: ID10-T thought it tasted vaguely like PS. But it's weirdly acidic. Like kind of lemon-y. Also very sweet. Not really a problem, but worth noting. The sweetness combined with the weird tartness is almost reminiscent of a lemon candy. But with PS.

20.23

TFA Pumpkin Spice: Very clove-y. Basically all clove. Astringent and a little harsh. If you want clove then use FLV Clove. Or, if you can't get FLV, FA Clove is a good second choice. DEL Clove is pretty good too. Extremely potent. Only need around 0.25%.

21.51

TFA Holiday Spice: Just nutmeg. Not a bad nutmeg though. Doesn't have any off notes. Has a thick, creamy body for some reason. TFA has a Nutmeg that isn't nearly as good. But ID10-T would probably just use FLV Eggnog if he wanted nutmeg. Extremely potent. Only need around 0.25%.

23.11

TFA Pumpkin: Thin. A bit weird. Buttery. Thick if % pushed up. But gets earthy at higher %s. Earthiness is kind of spicy, but not like PS. Spicy like bad nicotine - a little peppery. ID10-T thought at low %s may have the ability to do what adding pumpkin to a bakery would do? But Emily strongly disagrees. ID10-T tested at 4%

24.34

TFA Yam: Starchy, thick. But very earthy and dry.

26.21