Hey 👋

It's been a while. Hope you're all doing swell.

I ordered some Nana Cream last month on a whim, which of course made me revisit the Nana Cream clone attempt I shared 6 years ago.

In the intervening time, many have shared their feedback on the recipe. It was close, but missing something. It didn't scratch quite the right itch. Or didn't scratch anything at all. The flavor was muted. It lacked the "sharpness" or tangy aspect of the real deal.

With the benefit of lower proximity to my original expedition, I strapped on my whale bone leg and took another crack at getting closer.

I think I found something simple – 4 flavors in equal proportion – that does the trick.

Nana Cream - fizzmustard's final clone attempt

Flavor | Vendor | Percentage ---------|----------|---------- Banana Cream | LorAnn | 4% Strawberries and Cream | TPA | 4% Strawberry | FlavorWest | 4% Strawberry | TPA | 4% Mix as max VG. Shake-and-vape is fine, but it settles after 24-48 hours.

I think, somewhere, Bombies said their supplier could not remove the yellow coloring from one of the flavorings in their recipe. Taking that at face value, it eliminates LorAnn's Banana Cream as an option, since it's available in a colorless version. I've tried a lot of alternatives. The closest alternative I ever found was DIY Flavor Shack's Banana Cream. It's yellow and is not available in a colorless version. I ordered it many years ago and found it was extremely similar to LorAnn's version. For online shopping, I use a service to create burner credit cards. After I ordered from DIYFS, the burner card I used there was hit with a bunch of purchases. Thankfully the purchases were declined because the card was closed, but it was enough to make me avoid that vendor.

All to say, LA Banana Cream is close enough for me. Even if it's not 100% "correct."

TPA Dragonfruit was a red herring. I was wrong. It has no place in the recipe. It does, however, share some interesting components with TPA Strawberries and Cream. The cream component in this particular flavoring is subtle, and it's presence rounds out the cream in LA Banana Cream in a way that would be overpowered by a full "cream" flavor. TPA Strawberries and Cream contributes is a little sourness, too.

Using both TPA and FW Strawberry provides a fuller strawberry note. I'm not sold on the necessity of both flavorings. Omitting the FW seems to leave the sweetness lacking, and leaving out TPA's removes some of the punch. In the end, I split the difference.

This has the "bite." It's tangy and sour. It's smooth and balanced. I like it.

Give it a try. Play with the percentages and share what you find.

I'm satisfied now. I'll move on.

And with that, I'll hang my harpoon and take another note from Melville: "It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."