#Bad

Creme Brulee 3.75% - One of the worst flavors I have ever tried. Burnt as fuck to the point of extreme nastiness. Some sweetness under that bitter burnt awfulness. It’s like when people don’t know how to roast marshmallows properly and they just set it on fire, blow it out, toss the charred skin, and eat the inside. Imagine eating only the burned skin. And as if that’s not bad enough, there’s some chemical weirdness to it as well, so it was like the fire it was burned in was burning plastic instead of wood. And there’s not even any custard taste or creamy body underneath that burnt nasty to justify calling it creme brulee. They should be ashamed to sell this to people.

Dark Blackberry 2.25% - Like my granny accidentally filled my bottle of nasal spray with her granny perfume and then tried to make it up to me by giving me some wild berry lifesavers gummies that I ate with my sinuses still filled with grandma perfume. It’s almost as bad as FA Blackberry, which is the worst blackberry. 2.25% (apparently I should have tried this much much lower? 2.25% is right in the middle of Chef's recommended use % range, though. Bad Chefs! But really, just forget about this one and get Flavour Monks Blackberry instead).

Cottage Cheese 1.25% - OMG that’s bad. I was prepared for it to taste a little pukey given that it’s called “cottage cheese,” but wasn’t at all prepared for it to taste like sweet cream blended with a little bit of moldy, rotten rhubarb. WTF.

Almond 2% - Nobody: Not one single DIY mixer: SSA: Here’s another almond like VT Almond, where you get some sweet almond double-wrapped in a brand-new vinyl shower curtain! (this flavor is plasticky AF)

Butter 2.5% - Vomit. Ever made a recipe that started with “cream together butter and sugar?” What if instead of whatever the recipe says, you choose your next step to be to eat all of that creamed together butter and sugar? And then you promptly puke it up? SSA Butter, that’s what. Also has a touch of vanilla in there that might be nice if wasn’t for all the ralphing.

Lemon Cheesecake 2.25% - Pretty disgusting. Tastes like lemon meringue pie filling, vanilla whipped cream, fake movie theater butter, and a little bit of baby vomit all blended up together.

Rum with Honey 3% - This is foul. There’s a nice sweet honey note in there, right in the middle, but wrapped all the way around is a terribleness I don’t think I’ve encountered before. Not even really sure how to describe it. I’ve tasted tire fire but this is more like toenail fire. There’s something a little fungal about it but also faintly burned, but not as intense as burned fungus, while somehow grosser. It’s like tea made from roasted fungus-infested toenail clippings instead of a tea bag, sweetened with honey. Just incredibly bad.

Ice Candies 3.5% - Nope. Chemically nail polish-ish sweet blueberry-ish candy with a moderate amount of Koolada finish. It’s just a badly failed copy of INW Blue Dwarf with Koolada added to it.

Blueberry 2.25% - Very sweet but otherwise dull tasting, and what flavor is there tastes like some kind of weird astringent wild berry-flavored medicine. Also, a little throaty. I don’t even know how you mess up blueberry this badly.

Summer Fruits 3% - Apparently it’s supposed to be cherry, raspberry, strawberry, and whatever “wild berries” are. I taste something more like a raspberry-peach hybrid wrapped in plastic off note, with a sweet but plasticky lingering finish that made me hate life for a bit.

Strawberry Milk 2.75% - My old nemesis, butyric acid, we meet again. It’s mostly strawberry, like a natural ripe strawberry, that’s interestingly both more tart and darker than strawberry flavors tend to be, and it’s a bold, vibrant strawberry. Perhaps people who don’t mind BA will love it, and strawberry mutes should try it because it’s different. But for me, it’s ruined by some sour dairy spoiled milk behind that strawberry. And the more I vaped it, the grosser it got, to the point of getting pukey. It lingered on my palate like I’d thrown up earlier in the day and never brushed my teeth and even left a stinky room note.

Malaysian Mango 2.5% - It’s a mango alright. Peel and all, unfortunately. Lots and lots of very strong green peel note that tastes quite a bit like Pine Sol mixed with pesticide (fire ant killer, specifically). Nearly unvapable. Unfortunate, because there’s a nice ripe mango underneath that pine sol pesticide peel.

Guava 2.25% - Mustard. It’s the darnedest thing, but I swear I taste mustard in this. Like a fresh, natural tart and sweet guava that someone sprinkled with dry mustard powder for whatever reason. But at least it mostly tastes like guava and doesn’t have that overwhelming cat pee/meth lab off note that some guava flavors have.

#Best In Class

Shortbread Cookie 2.5% - Rich, buttery yet dry, grainy/crumbly, sweet, full shortbread cookie. No off notes. There are definitely more versatile cookie/biscuit flavors, but if you’re 100% sure you want a shortbread specifically, I don’t think it gets any more accurate than this. I’d rather have a sugar cookie myself, just for the record.

Tiramisu 2% - I love tiramisu and was prepared to be violently disappointed, but I’m really not. It tastes like tiramisu but someone went heavy on the Kaluha and light on everything else. It’s far from perfect but it sure beats FA Booster (Tiramisu), which is absolute trash. The Kahlua soaked ladyfingers perfect as far as the Kaluha goes, the ladyfinger I had to look for to find under all that. There’s some sweet cream but not real deal richness of the sweetened mascarpone. There’s even a light dust of cocoa in the finish which is a lovely touch. I might throw some soft cookie and more sweet cream flavor at this and be good to go.

Classic Oat Flakes 0.5% - Well, maybe not “best in class” but more like “only in class.” It seems like it will have a limited use, but I don’t know of any other flavor that will really give that authentic dry uncooked oats flavor that I want for something like an oatmeal cookie or as part of a granola. It’s not good to vape by itself at all, just that genuine oats top note, and a bland, almost cardboardy base with a touch of darker sweetness to it, which seems like it would be mostly covered up in a mix.

Multivitamin 2.5% - Another one that’s more “only in class” rather than “best in class” because it’s fairly unique. And delicious! Deep, saturated flavor. Unfortunate name but apparently it’s some kind of european thing. It tastes mostly like pineapple, but there’s a lot of other stuff going on in this bright, citrusy fruit mix. I get some sweet orange and lemon pretty clearly, but more than that even, a bit of red grapefruit and something else, maybe peach - it gets a little muddy. The orangy-lemon taste a little on the candy side but the pineapple is a little more realistic. If you go back to their Forest Fruits and how dark that was, this is the yin to that yang. Not harsh at all, which is surprising for something that tastes like citrus-pineapple-peach. Nothing quite like it but when compared to similar-ish flavors, like FA Citrus Mix and FLV Tropical Citrus (two other bright fruit mixes), it blows them out of the water.

Bakery Orange 2.75% - Yet another “only in class.” Have you ever had a baked orange? The baking caramelizes some of the sugar inside the orange and changes the flavor in a way that’s hard to describe, but they have fucking nailed it and there's not another flavor like this that I'm aware of. Deep, I would even say rich. No zesty peel note, not tart, but clearly orange with syrupy dark sweetness infused in it. I think most mixers are most often looking for a fresher, juicy orange, but if you want a cooked orange for something like topping a custard or going into a bakery, this is THE ONE.

Anise 2.25% - Although I despise anise off notes turning up in strange places, I actually don’t mind when it’s honest about being anise. This is a fuller-figured anise than the others I’ve tried for Noted, and you know I like my flavors like I like my women, Rubenesque. Sweet but not too sweet, no off notes unlike the others. Are we still talking about women or are we back to anise? Same thing, either way. Seriously, I love how it has more body than FA Anise, the only other one I’ve tried that didn’t have off notes ranging from slight to ruined.

Irish Cream 2% - Pretty much nailed it. Not quite as boozy nor as smooth coating or thickly creamy rich as I really want but, and this is a bit but, it actually tastes more like Bailey’s fucking Irish Cream. It’s the most accurate Irish Cream I’ve tried, compared to FA (which it’s closest to), FLV (which is tasty but not accurate), TFA, CAP, and HS.

Natural Mint 2% - I don’t see much demand for a natural, leafy green peppermint with an herbal quality and just-right mentholation is just right. But this is the best such flavor I’ve ever tried. It might just the exact right flavor for something like a tea with peppermint or if you want something like a build your own peppermint tobacco without extra menthol.

Garden Mint 1.25% - There is a demand for a spearmint that’s very green and herbal-tasting, and this is very much that. Just a little extra sweetness than you’d get actually chewing on a spearmint leaf, otherwise spot-on to that. Need a mint for a mojito or mint julep? This is that mint, much more so than any other spearmint I’ve ever tried.

Nectarine 2.5% - 100% a summer sun-ripened fresh natural nectarine. I can almost taste the redder skin that a nectarine this perfectly ripened has, and the juicy sweet flesh. Deep, vibrant flavor. Someone might be disappointed if they were looking for a brighter, more citrus-ish nectarine, but as far as I’m concerned, this flavor is flawless.

#Awesome

Cola 2.5% - Cola? Yes, absolutely, unmistakably cola. Off notes? None, though if I want to get super nitpicky it’s a bit overly citrusy for a cola. Flat? No, it does that “wet mineral” thing that passes for fizz as well as any. So why is it not Number 1? It tastes very soft and thin at this concentration. I’m really missing the syrupy cola depth here, it’s absent. I will need to mess with the % and see if I can get it to be bolder and thicker, but I have a strong hunch that it’s not going to get to either of those and instead just toss out off notes when cranked up. Tastes pretty good though, and might be great mixed with another cola.

Cappuccino Coffee 1% - It really tastes like cappuccino! Lightly sweet, milky cappuccino, like cappuccino made from one of those instant powders. It’s a little dry, but not as dry as the very similar INW Cappuccino, which is so dry it’s almost like just eating the cappuccino powder.

Cactus 1% - I’m reluctantly putting this in the awesome range, barely. It lacks that wonderfully wet quality of INW Cactus, but tastes a lot more like one of those aloe juice drinks. Personally, I don’t like them, at least not the original flavored ones without added lime or mango flavor. But I felt it would be unfair to put this any lower than awesome for people who are looking for that sort of flavor. It tastes like aloe juice drink, without the beverage wetness.

Apple Strudel 2.25% - Well, there’s some cinnamon, finally. And a little dough, too. This is a better apple pie than their apple pie, but what it really tastes like is a more flavorful WF Cinnamon Apple Strudel. This is exactly what I wanted when I tried WF Cinnamon Apple Strudel and didn’t get. Let’s just pull out WF Cinnamon Apple Strudel notes and compare. WF Cinnamon Apple Strudel 2% and 4% (to try to get more flavor out of it). “Perfectly pleasant, very much so, but soft.” SSA Version is not soft, that’s why it’s better. “Some spice but it’s light and tastes more cinnamon-like than authentic rich cinnamon.” I wouldn’t call SSA’s cinnamon “rich” but it’s at least more clearly cinnamon. “Nice cooked red apple but it’s soft and doesn’t really cream apple at me.” SSA is not quite about it’s appleyness but the apple has a similar taste. “Some buttery pastry that tastes good and bready but it’s soft and a little thin.” Same. The flavor overall has depth and complexity so it doesn’t read as thin but the bakery part isn’t a thick mouthful of strudel.” Same. “Has a nice sweet finish almost like powdered sugar.” Same. “I guess it tastes like cinnamon apple strudel but it seems like it could use more of everything apart from that sweet finish... it’s good but it’s just so soft.” SSA has more of everything. “People who like their flavors softer and more subtle or have sensitive palates might love it, but I have a big dumb old palate that wants to be mouthfucked with flavor and this is more like being gently caressed by flavor.” I my big dumb old palate feels sufficiently mouthfucked by SSA. SSA wins. But still, FLV Apple Filling. I’m getting tired of repeating that.

Juicy Orange 1.5% - Much better flavor than their Orange Juice, will have to be careful not to confuse the two. Darker, richer, thicker, more natural orange flavor, with a little pleasant earthiness to it. Like mostly orange, but with a little tangerine or blood orange as well. Deep fleshy body.

Ripe Peach 2% - A very natural tasting peach, not at all peach rings candy. Mostly a nice ripe peach, but without the juiciness that implies. Also a little soft, not a super bold flavor, but I could easily see this being some people’s favorite peach.

Crisp Waffle 1.25% - Emphasis on the crisp. This is not a waffle, this is a crunchy waffle cone. Crunchy, dry, and sweet, with that kind of toasted meringue and light vanilla cone that is exactly right for a waffle one. There’s also a little butter here, which is not normal for a waffle cone, but it’s only a little. It’s also imperfect because it has a griddle note that’s a tad earthy, like a slightly dirty waffle cone. Soluble Arome Waffle is extremely similar, but it does not have that butter note. It makes that one less tasty and this one less accurate to waffle cone, so pick your poison. The butter seems like it could get covered up in a mix with ice cream and just add to the ice cream richness, so I wouldn’t worry about that. The dirty grill thing might be trickier, but it’s not very strong and will probably be fine as well.

Compote Cherry 1.5% - Darker sweet cherry, doesn’t make me really go “oh wow cherry compote” but does taste more like red cherries cooked down into something darker vs. dark sweet cherries that started dark. Like a cherry pie filling situation. There’s something very vaguely and very slightly plasticky about it, but nothing at all like the full-on new vinyl shower curtain off notes that plague so many cherries. This could definitely work in a mix that covers that plasticky edge, which should be easy to do. It tastes much more like cherry pie filling than any of the other cherries I’ve tried.

Thai Pineapple 3% - That is a really good pineapple flavor. Extremely flavorful, very sweet, and very natural-tasting. The only thing that kept me from calling it best in class is a teensy tiny little sulphurous or “oniony” edge that seems to be a thing with pineapples in general, which is light, and, I think, could disappear in a mix. For reference, I get that off-note also in varying degrees of a lot more than in this one from FA, HS, and RFSC pineapples. I don’t get it from INW Pineapple, VT Sugarloaf Pineapple, FLV Pineapple, or CAP Golden Pineapple, but those have their own issues and this one definitely competes with them for top pineapple.

Whipped Cream 2.75% - Excellent sweet fluffy whipped dairy cream with a light touch of brighter vanilla on one end and an almost buttery richness on the other. Similar to CAP VWC but more sugary sweet. The only whipped cream I’ve tried that I’d call better is FA Whipped Cream, which has a better coating milkfat mouthfeel while this sweeter flavor has some marshmallowy dryness to it.

Milky Caramel Fudge 2.75% - This is their good caramel, and it's really really good. It’s milky and not as darkly caramelized as I usually want caramel to be, it’s like a caramel that would be tan instead of golden brown, but it tastes like a spoonful of delicious gooey caramel sauce that sticks to the roof of my mouth. No off notes.

SSA Sweet Mint 1.25% - Extra mentholated icy peppermint with a very sweet candy base. The iciness here goes beyond a candy cane and into Altoids or like a Dentyne Ice gum flavor, but the candy base isn’t specifically chalky like Altoids or gummy like gum, just thick and sweet. Very cold linger on this one, the first few breaths I take after vaping it are especially icy. A little of this could go a long way in something like a peppermint ice cream that’s supposed to be cold. This doesn’t make it into the best in class rank because it’s so similar to two other flavors I’ve tried, INW Shisha Peppermint and FLV Peppermint. The differences are slight. It’s sweeter than FLV Peppermint, and not quite as icy as INW Shisha Peppermint. That’s about it. It seems unnecessary to the collection of someone who already has those.

#Above Average Part 2

Dulce de Leche 2% - Disclaimer on this one: If you are even more sensitive to butyric acid than I am, and I believe I’m quite sensitive to it, you could have a really bad time with this one. I can almost guarantee you it’s in there. I got just enough of that to be a little off-putting on a fresh redrip and after taking a break from it and coming back. But it’s very light and after a couple of drags I don’t notice it anymore and it really tastes like it should. Buttery-rich very sweet caramelized gooey deliciousness. Starts and finishes sweet, with all that richness condensed in the middle. I think 2% might have been a little high, maybe 1.5% and steeping for longer than a week would make this perfect. I recall other DDL flavors tasting good, most of them like rich brown sugar, some with an odd chocolatey aspect that shouldn’t be there, but none tasting this authentic.

Blackcurrant 2.25% - I’m no expert on what blackcurrant is supposed to taste like so I can’t really comment much on authenticity, but looking back over the notes I have on all the currants I’ve tried before, some of them were really bad, and that makes this one above average. It’s vibrant and has a deep, saturated flavor. It tastes like a tart and sweet blueberry-blackberry-grape-raspberry mashup, with a very light ripe funkiness to it that makes it taste like a natural fruit rather than candy. Of note, it’s a bit throaty for me, not super harsh. I’d still pick VT Shisha Black Currant over this one, though.

Toffee 2.25% - It’s a softer toffee flavor, not real punchy, but it checks out. Tastes like toffee, sugary caramelized sweet buttery toffee. Seems like it might get a little lost in a mix because it’s soft, but tastes great. Also soft in the sense that it doesn’t really get that sugary crunchy thing down the way some others, like VT English Toffee for example does. But relative to a lot of other toffee flavors, it’s above average.

Sweet Mandarin 2% - Clearly a mandarin orange. Very sweet, almost too sweet. Nice depth of flavor, thick, but a little soft. Very similar to VT Mandarin, to the extent I think they could be interchangeable 1:1 subs. Better than TFA and FA Mandarin flavors, but I’d still be more likely to reach first for FE Sweet Orange for a mandarin flavor with a little more oomph to it.

Forest Fruits 1% - It’s a lot like FA Forest Fruit, but darker. The only fruit I can really easily pick out of this medley is raspberry, and that’s because there’s a touch of tartness to it and brighter than the rest of the flavor and sits right on top. That’s about 10% of the flavor. For the most part, it’s quite dark, like blueberry, blackberry, boysenberry, and maybe a touch of blackcurrant all mashed together into one thing. There’s a touch of something greenish/plantlike and a nice little funkiness to it (that’s why I said maybe blackcurrant). The overall effect is something that tastes both natural and unnatural at the same time, like a real fruit that doesn’t exist. Sweetness on par for that too, it’s sweet but not like candy. FA Forest Fruit is already pretty dark, but if it’s not dark enough for you, definitely give this a try. It’s better than a lot of other berry blends.

Raspberry Syrup 2.25% - This makes the above average cut because it’s a perfectly good candy red raspberry with nothing wrong with it at all, which is more than I can say for a bunch of other raspberry flavors. There’s a nice touch of tartness right up front that doesn’t run floral (a problem with raspberries), a nice saturated deep red candy raspberry flavor, and a base that’s thick and sweet. It’s slightly thoaty for me, not harsh, but noticeable. I don’t think it has anything on INW Shisha Raspberry, which tastes just like raspberry syrup that had real raspberries involved in making it, but it’s a good one.

Cranberry Jam 1.5% - Really tasty and clearly cranberry, a much better “cranberry sauce,” than TFA Cranberry Sauce. But it seems to put quite a bit more emphasis on the jammy sweetness than on the cranberry itself, so it’s not a very intense flavor at all. It’s jammy sweet from top to bottom, with the cranberry itself sitting more in the middle. It really is very much like a cranberry jam or that canned cranberry sauce, where cranberries were used to make it, but there aren’t any actual visible cranberries in there. Very cooked down and subdued cranberry flavor with lots of added sugar and even thick jammy texture. Obviously this won’t do for a fresh cranberry - which are almost inedible tart anyway - and I probably bother wouldn’t trying to use it as a stand-in for cranberry juice, either. Seems like it could be used to sweeten and tone down a more aggressive cranberry, or as a base for adding another cranberry to, or for just adding a sweet and subtle cranberry note to something more complex.

Peanut Butter 1.75% - This one stands a chance of being moved from above average to awesome or even best. It’s an otherwise incredibly accurate roasted PB flavor that’s perfectly sweet and not too dry, and the only thing keeping it from being awesome and possibly the best peanut butter I’ve ever tried is the slightest hint of a nut skin note that shouldn’t be there. It’s like you made your own homemade peanut butter out of redskin peanuts and removed most, but not all of the skins. I really need to play around with concentrations and steeps on this one because it’s otherwise so great.

#Below Average

Ripe Mango 1% - Y’all know I’m real picky about my Mangoes. It’s not terrible, and it’s identifiable as a mango. But just... not right. It’s as if it’s based on a cooked mango that was not properly peeled before being cooked. There’s a slight Pine Sol in the top notes and the base is soft and darkly sweet. It might be just the thing for some kind of weird mango chutney vape with stuff covering up the pine sol, but it’s not something I’ll be likely to reach for when making any mango mix.

Natural Raspberry 1.75% - Mostly tastes like some kind of weird sugary berry candy. Very sweet but not bold or vibrant. It’s not like a fresh, juicy, tart raspberry at all, in fact it’s the opposite of all of those things. There’s no raspberry tartness. It’s so sweet that it feels a little dry. And there’s also a bit something on the funky/savory spectrum in there, which goes beyond just a little earthy realism. Almost like you cooked a bunch of less flavorful out-of-season raspberries down in a little unsalted chicken broth and then dumped a shitload of sugar in there. It’s not good. Try FA Raspberry instead for more natural red raspberry.

Chocolate 1% - Very light and soft at this concentration and seems to be due to under flavoring. I would need to crank it up to find out what’s really going on here. But I don’t want to and you can’t make me. You’re not my real dad. I don’t want to because I’m getting very light notes of watered down tootsie roll with jammy cherry sweetness and a touch of odd spice. I could be wrong and it could really come together beautifully at the right %, but I really don’t like the direction this is going.

Ripe Cherry 2% - Nope. It has some new vinyl shower curtain to it. Not much at all, and underneath that is a nice sweet red cherry flavor with an oddly darker sweetness on it, so that’s interesting. But I can’t abide that nightmare plastic and this is ruined with it right up front, even if it’s not as prominent as it is in a lot of other cherry flavors.

Black Tea 1.25% - Just tastes like dirt, really. Sweetened dirt. But good dirt, the dark, moist kind that plants love. At least it’s not fermented dirt (looking at you TFA Black Tea).

Creamy Pistachio 1.5% - So, I like pistachio and lime together. I think they were made for each other, I even made a whole recipe to attempt to inspire and challenge other mixers to try making pistachio and lime vapes. But setting aside my personal love for interesting combinations that somehow work, can’t think of any excuse for a flavor called “Creamy Pistachio” to have a fairly strong, distinctly lime off note to it. That’s super weird, right? And yet this tastes like dipping pistachios in sweet lime sherbet. It’s a full-flavored vape that I personally enjoy very much, but I’d be doing people who just want a damn pistachio a disservice if I put this any higher than below average.

Butter Cream 3.25% - What I ordered: Delicious buttercream frosting. What Wish sent me: Delicious buttercream frosting that sat out until it went rancid. Very sweet and rich, but with a bit of an unpleasantly sour, spoiled milk taste right upfront. Maybe it could be covered up in a mix? But there are plenty of other frosting flavors that taste great and that don’t need work to taste great.

Natural Wild Strawberry 2.25% - This is very weird. I don’t even get strawberry from it, much less natural strawberry. It tastes like a dull sugary/powdery raspberry candy dipped in celery juice or something vaguely vegetal, and there’s a light touch of cooling wintergreen-ish thing in the finish.

Purple Plum 2% - It tastes like plum, but like an underripe plum and a cooked plum at the same time. It has a peely top note that’s too prominent, bitter, and a little chemically, with a body that’s dark and sweet and tastes cooked, like a baked plum. I could really use that baked plum without the peel, but with it, I don’t know what to do with this.

Apricot 1.25% - It tastes like a real dried Apricot! Which is awesome! With a touch of plastic... which is ... not at all awesome. It’s a shame. This is not the worst Apricot flavor I’ve ever tried (That title goes to VT Apricot, an unvapeable dumpster fire of plastic disaster), but there’s CAP, FLV, and FA that are so much better than this.

Ripe Banana 1.75% - Mostly Runts, but with a slight green banana edge. Similar to INW Banana and LB Banana, but thicker, creamier, and sweeter than those.

Milky Caramel Cream 2% - Extremely sweet, sweet caramel with thick, strong dairy richness behind it, but it tastes like a piece of candy that it got dunked in fake popcorn butter. If someone made a recipe with it and promised that they managed to cover up that fake butter element I’d try that because it sure is a rich milky caramel otherwise, but by itself it’s kind of icky.

Butterscotch 2.25% - It’s in the same boat as the Milky Caramel Cream with the obviously fake butter. Otherwise tastes similar to it as well, just not as intense with the fake butter, brighter, and not as rich. For the most part, it tastes like butterscotch, though.

Caramel 2.25% - It’s a bit burnt-tasting, and more almost-molasses dark brown sugar than caramel. Lots of dark sweetness. Could easily be useable, just not a great caramel. Also, dry, not rich and gooey like I want a caramel to be.

Shortbread Biscuit 2.75% - Sweet and buttery but vaguely unpleasant, like undercooked. Or like it wasn’t mixed well and I’ve just taken a bite that includes a pocket of raw-tasting unmixed flour that was hiding inside a cookie.

Fruit Hard Candy 2.25% - Very sweet. Not specifically hard candy but definitely candy. There’s a little citrus and a little berry but I can’t pick out anything more specific than that. Fairly softly flavored and textured, more like a melted down and then watered down whole pack of starbursts. Very slight plasticy sort of off note that is unpleasant standalone, but which seems like it might be possible to cover up in a mix with a good strong fruit flavor using this as a soft candy base.

Ice Cream Vanilla 1.75% - This has a nearly perfect lingering vanilla ice cream finish that’s not as rich as I want it to be, but otherwise tastes very right. It’s like the vanilla is a rich vanilla, but the ice cream is soft and fluffy, not heavy. I’d like some DAAP, please. And that’s just the finish. Then there’s the first 80% of the exhale of this flavor that I had to get through to get to that really nice finish. It’s bland as fuck. Just bland and darkly sweet, like a glass of water with a teaspoon of brown sugar and a tablespoon of milk stirred in. A recipe that takes great advantage of that lovely finish and covers up the rest with rich ice cream could change my mind about this flavor, but for now it’s below average compared to other vanilla ice cream flavors that are rich and full.

Mocca Coffee 2.25% - I might have overdone the % on this one because I hear people say it ain’t bad. The worst of the common coffee off-notes (skunk spray and burnt popcorn) absent, so it could be a lot worse, but it tastes a little too earthy/dirty and burnt (but not burnt popcorn), just like a burnt bitterness in the top notes. Sugar-sweetened gas station mocha that’s been on the warmer too long at too high a temperature kinda thing. It’s about tied with LB Cappuccino (which is called cappuccino but tastes like mocha to me) and it just depends on whether you’d rather the burnt coffee note of this or the slightly tootsie rollish chocolate note of LB. It also appears this one is going to be a wick destroyer, if that helps you decide.

#Average Part 1

Candy Floss 2% - I was pretty sure this was just ethyl maltol when I tasted it, but I’ve since been told it doesn’t even have ethyl maltol in it, so I don’t know what’s going on here. Has that spun sugar tastes while oddly not really being all that sweet by itself (though it might greatly enhance the sweetness of other flavors, at the cost of some muting). Dry. Thin. Top Heavy. There if you want to vape cotton candy or candy floss, there are better ones out there, FLV, Lorann’s, for example.

Cocoa 1% - Dark chocolate, bittersweet, a little dry, a little stale tasting, like old chocolate that starts turning white. But nothing glaringly wrong with it apart from a mild fruitiness to its sweetness.

Sweet Coffee 1% - A little dirty, but not riddled with nasty off notes. Mildly and accurately bitter coffee top notes, then the weird dirtiness, then a sweet base with some lingering dirt coffee combo. It’s not a dark earthiness. It’s more like the clay you’d find under an inch or two of northeast Texas topsoil. Also, the whole thing is light and I think that 1% might be too low. Maybe comes together better at a higher %, maybe becomes absolutely awful. Your guess is as good as mine on this one.

Sweet Watermelon 2% - Top-heavy candy watermelon with a bland but sweet base. Not much going for it over other candy watermelon flavors other than it’s really sweet, almost to the point of tasting like watermelon-flavored cotton candy. Not juicy, kinda dry actually. Might use to sweeten another watermelon and push that candy watermelon top note forward a bit, but not great as a single flavor.

Orange Juice 1.5% - Sweet orange candy mostly, but also has a little zest and a hint of lemon. A little harsh, even for a citrus. Kind of like those orange slice gummy things, but without the sugary exterior or distinctly gummy body. This is about average for an orange flavor.

Natural Lemon 1.5% - Mostly Lemonheads candy, sugary sweet, very slightly pledgy. Nothing very “natural” about it. But not too thin or too harsh, actually fairly thick and smooth for a lemon.

Juicy Lemons 3.5% - It is indeed a little juicy, but it’s like the spit in your mouth after letting a Lemonhead dissolve in there. Like a weaker (in concentration) and juicier version of their Natural Lemon, minus the touch of pledge.

Mascarpone Cream 1.5% - Sweet and thick but chalky and bland, with a light and soft but pleasant dairy body. It’s fine, I guess, but get HS Italian Cream for an authentic mascarpone flavor.

Grapefruit 1.5% - Very sweet, thick bodied, clearly grapefruit, tastes sort of like one of those grapefruit slice gummy candies. Similar to CAP Grapefruit but that one is softer and thinner, this has more of a bold grapefruit top note. Could be great for any kind of grapefruit candy or soda, or to sweeten a more natural-tasting grapefruit flavor.

Ripe Pear 3% - Have you ever wished FA Pear was less juicy? Yeah, me neither. But I have wished it was sweeter. This is basically that, a much drier, much sweeter FA Pear. It’s a bit soft and needs serious help in the juiciness department, but it could easily have a role in a pear mix and that sugary sweetness might even help with a realistic mealy pear texture in a mix. I wouldn’t trust it to be the only pear in a pear recipe, though.

Ripe Strawberry 2.5% - It’s fine. Just another middle of the road strawberry that tastes neither fully natural nor fully candy. Sweeter and a little darker than most of those but not as vibrant or saturated as an above average strawberry flavor. Yawn.

Classic Vanilla 1.75% - Another yawn. Mild, slightly sweet, subtly creamy, basic mid-range vanilla. Other adjectives that generally get applied to vanillas: bright, artificial, floral, fruity, dark, spicy, rich, malty. None of them really fit this well but fruity, only a very, very slightly, there’s a little cherry-like fruitiness to it if I really search for it. Seems like this very much hits the profile of “classic vanilla,” which is so boring.

Vanilla Sugar 2.75% - It’s just a somewhat brighter, artificial-ish tasting vanilla on top of a darker not-quite-brown sugary sweetness, with a slight malty taste in the finish. Nothing off here and it’s smooth and tasty but just kinda meh, whatever.

Sweet Yogurt 2.5% - I’m not very qualified to pass judgment on a yogurt vape since I generally don’t like them. Just a little disclaimer. It most resembles CAP Sweet Yogurt. It tastes a lot like it. Has the same very slight vanilla note. Same slight chalkiness to it. The differences are subtle. It’s sweeter than CAP Sweet Yogurt, and probably the sweetest yogurt flavor I’ve tried. It’s sourness twang is somewhat milder than CAP’s. At the same time, it’s not as smooth, and doesn’t have quite as much weight to it. The sour yogurty twang that’s about on par with CAP Sweet Yogurt’s comes in more in the aftertaste.

Sweet Cream 2.5% - This is interesting. I think it’s probably the sweetest of the Sweet Cream flavors that I have tried, but there’s a darkness to that sweetness, like a little brown sugar or caramel found its way into the mix. On one end there’s a touch of brighter vanilla and on the other it’s thick and rich with a touch of buttery-ishness, but I wish it were smoother, it’s a little on the dry side for a sweet cream flavor. Still, it hits the profile.

Cornish Cream 2.75% - IDK what this is supposed to taste like, so can’t comment on accuracy. I got a bland medium-bodied milky sweet dairy cream with just slight hints of butter, french vanilla, and caramel. The bit of butter tastes like butter but lacks the buttery weight and mouthfeel, instead, it’s got more of a drier, almost marshmallow mouthfeel, without quite reaching the level of the sugary sweetness as a marshmallow.

#Average Part 2

Candy Cuckoo 2% - I just stuffed this in the average category because it’s so weird I didn’t know what else to do with something so strange. This is apparently supposed to be “Intensely cocoa hard candy with a strong creamy alcohol note.” I do not get the “hard candy” aspect at all, but the rest is there. As cocoa goes, it’s not bad. No rubbery bandaid flavor or anything like that. Absent any actual cereal grain texture, it otherwise tastes like just like cocoa puffs cereal that sogged in liquid so long it lost all texture. The thing is, the liquid it sogged in... they aren’t kidding about the strong creamy alcohol note. This is straight up what would happen if you poured Irish Cream over cocoa puffs cereal and let it sit for an hour before eating it. That would be a bizarre thing to do, but here we are. What do you even do with that? I doubt you can cover up the strong Irish Cream taste to make cocoa puffs, nor the cocoa puffs to make Irish Cream. Maybe some kind of adult after-dinner drink, an alcoholic hot cocoa, could be made out of it? Worth noting, that Irish cream is a bit throaty, but not excessive for an alcohol flavor, though.

Pitaya Dragonfruit 1.25% - This one is another one I just stuffed in the average range because I didn’t know what to do with it. It tastes more like cactus fruit than dragonfruit, which itself tastes more like real dragonfruit than most dragonfruit flavors. Personally, I really prefer the artificial “white gummy bear” flavor that we’ve all just sort of agreed to call “dragonfruit,” but this is more like the real thing. Sweet, crisp, juicy, nectary, with hints of fruitiness resembling but not quite the same as watermelon and pear, and a slightly citrusy aloe-ish note, like cactus. I put this in the average range for people who think dragonfruit should tastes more like real dragonfruit, but personally I don’t see myself ever reaching for it.

Raspberry Blackberry Lemonade 2.25% - Pleasant enough berry flavor. Doesn’t really do what I was expecting from “Raspberry Blackberry Lemonade.” Tastes more like boysenberry covered in sugar. It’s sweet but not juicy and refreshing like a beverage, it’s even a little on the dry side. I can’t find the lemon. It’s got some tart, but more like a raspberry tartness than a citrus, though it does run a little deeper than other raspberries usually do. No distinct blackberry taste, it’s noticeably darker than a straight raspberry, but only just. Oddly, Chef’s description for it says “Raspberry-Blackberry Lemonade with fresh mint” - I’m not getting any mint, or even anything mint-adjacent or a little touch of cooling or anything remotely like that. But, it doesn't taste “bad” at all, I could stick it in a berry mix of some sort, especially one that could use a little more sweetness and tartness.

Melon 2.25% - It’s either both cantaloupe and honeydew or a more exotic melon that tastes like a mixture of the two. It really tastes like melon, not a candy-type flavor. Not rindy. No off-notes. Nice and ripe and very sweet. But - and this is a big but - it has none of that juiciness I’m looking for in a melon mix. It’s kinda dry, even, which is a bit weird up against that otherwise authentic melon.

Ice Cream 2.5% - Dehydrated astronaut ice cream? It tastes like a very sweet and airy dairy cream like whipped cream, with an extremely light barely-there vanilla, but dry and without the thick, heavy, creamy feel to it. No weird off-notes, though.

Caramel Biscuit 2.25% - Very dark, almost but not quite burnt caramel, sticky sweet, on top of a dryish buttery biscuit. It’s like just their caramel on top of their shortbread biscuit, but somehow the burntness of the caramel and the undercooked flour of the biscuit mostly cancel each other, leaving only shadows of those off-notes, out so the result is not bad. I could see this working it’s way into a lot of bakery recipes for dark sweetness and buttery volume. Apparently there’s supposed to be some kind of chocolate in here as well, but I could not find it, though that might explain why the caramel part is so unusually dark for a caramel.

Cinnamon Apple Pie 1.5% - Clearly a cooked apple. Flavorful. Very sweet, pleasantly juicy. Very faint spice note, maybe cinnamon, maybe not. Could just be peel, like apples off of a rustic skin on apple tart. No crust uniless the faint vaguely nutty note in there is supposed to be crust. I could see this being a component in any cooked apple scenario including pie. But seriously folks, FLV Apple Filling.

Madagascar Vanilla 3% - Full-bodied, dark, malty vanilla, sweet but not too sweet. Leaves a lingering extracty vanilla taste that’s amazing. I caught a little of a boozy off-note on top though. This is definitely one I want to go back and try at a lower concentration, and/or longer steep, and maybe in a mix or two, because this is promising and I really want to see if it can get better. I’m leaving it in the average range now but it might get moved up once I get a chance to play with it.

Bubblegum 2.75% - Definitely tastes like classic pink bubblegum, and it’s much more boldly flavorful than many other bubblegum flavors, which tend to taste a little ABC (already been chewed). Unfortunately it’s not any juicier than the average bubblegum flavor. Also, I get a hint of clove every few puffs. But, I think there’s a fairly good chance that just means 2.75% was too high. I’ll be trying this again at a later date with a lower concentration and longer steep and might be moving it out of average and into above average or higher in my estimation.

#Above Average Part 1

Borneo Vanilla 2.75% - More of a spicy, vanilla beanie vanilla, with a light, creamy body and drier finish. It’s not bad at all. But FLV Vanilla Bean tho.

Green Tea 1.25% - Bright, floral, slightly citrusy, sugar-sweetened green tea. Fairly light at this weight. I need to tinker with the % to see if it punches harder because this is so soft and subtle it seems like it might get completely overwhelmed in a mix. But it’s pleasant and relaxing. Better enough than FA and TFA green teas that I’m calling it above average. Similar to FE Green Tea, but the floral note here is less dominant than in FE and it tastes more dandelion-like while FE’s is very jasminey. This floral note might be preferable to the vaguely minty aspect of FLV Green Tea, depending on what it’s for and who you ask. That FLV Eisai Tea tho.

Golden Apple 1.25% - Fairly standard “double apple” situation where it has elements of both green and red apple, doesn’t really tastes like a “golden delicious” apple as the name implies. Sweet, juicy, full flavored. Personally I would prefer an apple flavor be solidly one kind of apple, rather than this sort of hybrid with the tarter green around the edges of a duller but sweeter red apple. It tastes pretty good, though, nothing I would call an off-note.

Baked Apple 2.5% - First thought: Just get FLV Apple Filling and skip this. It tastes like baked apple, the way baking caramelizes the natural sugars, with a barely there touch of warm spice that’s so light it might even just be the apple’s peel after it’s been baked. Peel and spice tastes kinda the same when they’re this light and not tart. But what if someone wants a baked peel-on apple without all that lovely cinnamon that FLV Apple Filling has? This could be their apple. But seriously, just get FLV Apple Filling.

Dessert Chocolate 1% - Chocolate cake, like a ding dong without the cream filling. Some mass-produced thing and not really a rich, moist, deep expensive chocolate cake, but none of the usual suspects when it comes to chocolate off notes. Reminds me of FW Creamy Chocolate but better, and of MB Creamy Cake but not as quite good.

Ripe Coconut 1.75% - If it’s coconut and it’s not suntan lotion, it’s automatically above average. This is primarily sweet, natural coconut flesh. It’s not as sweet and creamy as I’m usually looking for in a coconut flavor, but it’s not dry coconut flakes either. It’s relatively thin for a coconut, and there’s a slight citrus-ish brightness to it that seems off to me. FWIW, it reminds me a lot of VT Coconut, and I know some people really love that one.

Juicy Cherries 2% - Any cherry that’s not nasty is automatically above average in my book, and this one is decidedly not nasty. It is indeed juicy, but it’s similar to their Juicy Lemon in that it’s like the juiciness of your spit after you’ve already eaten the cherry candy. It’s fairly soft, not at all a bold, punchy flavor. There’s a slight plastic-ish vibe around the edges here, but nothing anywhere near the new vinyl shower curtain infamous nightmare cherry off-note.

Sour Lime 2.75% - It is a little sour, but also very sweet. There’s a touch of lime zest to it. It vapes a little warm, like citruses can unfortunately do. Has an almost effervescent feel between the zest and the sweeter, syrupy body, which makes it come across like drinking a Sonic Limeade at room temperature. On the upside, I really like the way this flavor leaves a lingering lime taste behind long after the vapor is gone. I could do some work with this one.

Scandinavian Fruits 2.5% - I was so intrigued by the smell of this one that I was a little let down by the way it actually vaped, which was... interesting. It’s fruity AF. Apparently it’s supposed to be cranberry, blueberry, blackberry, and whatever “Nordic raspberry” is. I can only really pick out blueberry and blackberry, but there’s a significant tartness to it and a vague “redness” as well. It doesn’t taste like real fruit. Artificial, and kinda like they took all the fruit flavors out of all the fruit cereals (especially the berry ones, like capn crunch berries, but also some lemony ones for tartness) and mixed them together. No actual cereal, just all the fruit flavors from the cereals. It’s all slightly throaty, but I wouldn’t call it harsh. It’s above average compared to a lot of other berry blend type of flavors, which tend to run floral or have any number of other issues. I could have some fun with this one.

Take my virtual orange arrow facing upwards for all the work you’ve done

I truly love you and appreciate every single taste receptor cell that went through hell and suffer to provide such informative impressions.

Post of the year

Where is bakery orange in all this?

Thank you ID10-T. Your hard work does not go in noticed! You do a lot for a niche community within a niche industry! Legend!🙌

Thank you for doing this for the community. This makes it really easy to look up what flavors to try and which to avoid like the plague. Having it all in one spot really helps with a new brand too.

Thank you, just saved me a bunch of money

Here's hoping I can do something about that Milky Caramel Cream ..

Thanks for these "first impressions" - Really a ton of work to do all of these, much appreciated!

oh wow! so many!

thank you so much for what you do man, this is insane

I recently picked up about 30 SSA extracts and I only have a few that are on the bad list. I also notice that plasticy off note on some and it’s really offputting. Thanks for doing the work I appreciate the list.

Wow man, thank you very much for this!

Epic, simply truly epic

Dave, you are a man among men! Thank you for this!