You can find Part 1 here, but it’s not like, required reading or anything.

Starting Flavor Count: 2,969 (down from 2,976 originally)

I’m playing TASK or TRASH again

#AMORETTI

Cloudberry

I’ve done almost all of my mixing tasks from Part 1, but fallen behind on my tasting tasks. I did try this one, though. At 4% it’s more cloud than berry, but that is not unexpected for a VG-based flavor. Those often need to be cranked up pretty high to work. What little flavor was there was vaguely reminiscent of a pink Starburst, but just very faint, like drinking a glass of water that has a small piece of pink starburst slowly dissolving at the bottom. Is that a thing? Are Starbursts water-soluble? According to someone on the internet calling herself “Mommy Crusader,” it takes 1 hour and 57 minutes to dissolve a starburst in water. Compared to 25 minutes for a Skittle and 42 minutes for a Tootsie Roll. I don’t know how much I trust someone called “Mommy Crusader,” though. 8% really was not that much more flavorful. Noticeably a bit more tart and sweet, just a bit, and maybe a little more of that same faint pink burst flavor. But certainly nowhere near flavorful enough to keep Cloudberry out of the TRASH 1.

Persimmon

Similar type of situation, 8% doesn’t taste like much. Nothing offensive about what is there, it’s just faint. I could not tell it was supposed to be persimmon, either. It’s just a nondescript fruit flavor, somewhat resembling apricot but a little funkier. I don’t really have a use for that TRASH 2.

#BICKFORD

This should be easy. A few were given to me by friends, a few I picked up when they were on clearance at River Supply (formerly Nic River). But most of these Bickford flavors I purchased from DIY Vapor Supply. Lots of wasted money, because most of these are bound for the garbage.

Black Currant

Similar sort of grape-blueberry mix to a lot of other blackcurrant flavors, with a tart top note that tastes and hits like a citrus flavor. Bit harsh on the throat, with a dry, chalky, and slightly soapy finish.Bottom line, there are better blackcurrants. TRASH 3

Blackberry

One of many blackberry flavors that’s soft and doesn’t really taste like a blackberry. It tastes like something nonexistent that’s halfway between a boysenberry and a black cherry. Because it was such a soft flavor at 4% I tried doubling it to 8% and rather than going floral like you would expect from an over-flavored blackberry, it even takes on some of that cherry cough medicine taste. 4% isn’t offensive and seems like it would be ok in the background of something, but it’s not really a blackberry. I don’t know of any recipes out there I want to try that use it. TRASH 4

Burnt Sugar

Well, they did warn me by calling it burnt sugar, at least. It wasn’t any fun for me to vape. It tastes like burned sugar. Dark and sweet but with a strong, acrid burnt undertone and finish that tasted like my cotton was black even though it wasn’t. I had to force myself to vape enough of this out of my RDA to rewick. TRASH 5

Cream Soda

I did not try this in time Cream Soda week because my order from DIY Vapor Supply took an unusually long time to ship. Placed on March 26 and still had not shipped as of April 23. Very unlike my previous experiences with that place, don’t know what the deal was. I guess I’ll have to try it now. TASK 1

Eggnog

I think this one must have been in the same order with the Cream Soda. TASK 2

Fig

So, I tried this at 2% and it tasted like a floral top note on a vague, dried dark fruit thing with a little mustiness to it -- not distinctly fig. You could tell me it’s supposed to be a date or raisin and I wouldn’t have any reason to doubt you. It’s also not a strong flavor at 2%, though, and it seemed might either come together as a more specific fruit or have a weird off note at a higher concentration. No offensive off-notes at 2%, though, and it’s quite sweet for something with a fairly light flavor.

ConcreteRiver for some reason I can’t recall wanted me to try this again at 10%. So I guess before I throw it away I’d better do that TASK 3.

Grape

Plasticy grape candy, but better than TFA Grape Candy. Just getting a slight plasticky edge on what otherwise tastes like a grape jolly rancher with a hint of blackberry or some other dark berry candy. Sweet and a little juicy. But, there are plenty of grape candy flavors that don’t taste like plastic at all, so this one is TRASH 6

Guava

Another one I never got around to trying. TASK 4

Lemon Lime

I don’t know how you screw up Lemon Lime this badly. You take some lemon flavor, you take some lime flavor, boom, lemon lime. And mostly Bickford Lemon Lime is that. It’s lemon forward, with a fair amount of sweeter lime behind it. But it also tastes like it has some meat in there. Not like rotten meat, but still, meat. Like I dripped a tiny bit of grease from a hamburger into an otherwise fine lemon lime flavor. It got worse or more meaty as the wick got drier. It even has a lingering greasy feel to it, and I’m not at all convinced that it’s safe to vape. Also, it ruined my coil, but not the normal way. It didn’t crust it up with visible gunk, but it wouldn’t heat evenly after vaping this stuff and I couldn’t burn it off. I wish DIY Vapor Supply did not try selling this to people, and I want my $1.95 back. TRASH 7.

Lemon Pound Cake

Seems to be a thing that with some cake flavors that all I get is some frosting. This is one of them. It mostly tastes just like lemon buttercream frosting. If you want to get even more specific, it tastes like you tried to DIY a lemon buttercream frosting vape using FA Lemon Sicily for the lemon and CAP Buttercream for the creamy bit, but somehow made it sweeter and drier than that would probably be, maybe with a touch of FA Marshmallow. It’s not a terrible lemon frosting at all, it’s smooth and sweet and full, with a mellow but realistic lemon, but it’s literally just frosting. No cake notes. While it’s not a bad lemon frosting, I can make a better one out of other frosting and lemon flavors, there’s really not a great reason for me not to put Bickford Lemon Pound Cake in the TRASH 8.

Mango

It’s not a bad little mango. Subtle, not bold. Sweet but not too sweet. Not piney so it’s a little peach-like but has a little funk on it so they can call it a mango. I never would have tried to build a recipe around it, but if I saw someone else’s recipe that interested me and used it, I wouldn’t have hesitated to give it a mix. But it’s just sat there for a year and half because that hasn’t happened, so I think it’s safe to go ahead and send it where the rest of the mediocre mangoes go, to the TRASH 9.

Mango Orange

More orange than mango. Nothing really glaringly wrong with either but neither tastes super great. Orange top notes are like candied orange peel, mango is barely distinguishable from a soft, subtle peach. Where to mango flavors that don't really taste like mango go? Say it with me, in the TRASH 10!

Peppermint

Tastes ok, like a plain basic no-frills candy cane peppermint, but it’s a fairly soft, light flavor that’s also a little harsh. Not like unvapably harsh, but like a typical level of throatyness that a citrus flavor would have. It’s not a bad flavor, but so many other plain peppermint flavors just vape better. TRASH 11

Plum

Plum juice from an oak barrel. Tastes like sweet black cherry mixed with apricot, which is more or less a plum, with a light, dry backnote of wood like some FA Oakwood or FLV Barrel Oak. I don’t know about covering up that wood flavor to get just a plum out of it that you might use for a straight plum thing, but it tastes like it might be a very interesting addition to a wine or sangria vape. Dropping it from 3% to 2% didn’t make the wood go away at all, it just made it a little less flavorful and somehow more dry. I need a good plum or two in my collection. While this one has some character and isn’t offensive to me, I could mix a better plum with one of those woods and have the same thing only better, if I wanted a woody plum. TRASH 12

Pomegranate

The main thing that struck me about this one is how sweet it is and how naturally sugary that sweetness is. Unfortunately, the rest of it the flavor is pretty flat and bland, dull on top with a cardboardy base, by cardboard soaked with watered-down pomegranate juice and sprinkled with sugar. TRASH 13

Pumpkin

The closest this really comes to pumpkin is a squash blossom, so like also a gourdy type of thing that grows on a vine. BTW, If you’ve never had a fried squash blossom, I highly recommend that, they are amazing. They kind of taste like yellow squash, but mildly, and they’re a little sweeter, and gently floral in a nice way, and of course crispy and tasting of fried breading, which, who doesn’t love that? But I digress. Bickford Pumpkin is delicately floral, not perfumy, and otherwise tastes a little like yellow squash. Maybe it could be considered pumpkiny enough for the small amount of pumpkin you actually get in some bakeries made with pumpkin, and the floral could be covered with spice. Anyway, I certainly didn’t find it to be unpleasant at all, in fact I really enjoyed it, it just really tastes like what I imagine inhaling a bouquet of squash blossoms would be like, and not so much like pumpkin. There’s some nice, thick body to this and I might use it as a base for some kind of late-summer early fall floral recipe if I could decide what else to put in that. “Mix it with tobacco” of course is the running joke but FLV Virginia does seem like a great pairing, at least in my head.

I’m sure this is bound for the trash sooner rather than later, but I think I had better go with my gut and mix it with some FLV Virginia first and see if I was onto something there. For my next TASK 5, I’ll try mixing

Co. | Flavor | % ---|---|---- FLV | Virginia Tobacco | 3 Bickford | Pumpkin | 2 FLV | Apple Filling | 1

If that looks at all familiar to you, that's because it’s just Alfred Pudding’s delightful Cabin with the TFA Pear swapped out for the Pumpkin. I'm tentatively calling it September Ends.

Rainbow Sherbet

Terrible. It has this lingering weird greasy taste to it. On top of that, there’s not much flavor, and what flavor there is, is just a vague, fruity mess. There’s some citrus, but I couldn’t even tell what kind of citrus it was supposed to be. It’s not creamy like sherbet, just kinda greasy. Also a little harsh, but maybe that’s just me. TRASH 14.

Raisin

Tastes like dirty grape candy. I mean grape candy with literal dirt on it. TRASH 15.

Rum Raisin

Nothing unpleasant to me, just dark-ish fruity sweetness with a slight musty quality. I’m sure it could be used for something, just not for what it says on the bottle. I don’t want to take the time to figure out what to do with it, and if I want Raisin Rum flavor, there are better options. TRASH 16

Sweet Cream

I’ve got about 16 or 17 “Sweet Cream” flavors and I think I only need maybe 3 of them. This one isn’t bad, it’s fine. But it’s just fine. Fairly mild and mid-range, not very thick and basey. Not much depth to it. Some, but not much. I’m culling it. TRASH 17.

#CAPELLA

And that’s it, I've gone over my whole Bickford collection and have gone through the whole bin labeled A1. I’m moving over to the A2 bin, which is where the Capella starts. Overall, those are going to be much harder to get rid of, but I’m sure I can dump a few handfuls of waste-of-space flavors. But just... not today.

27 Bears

It’s a basically a white gummy bear, which is supposed to be a pineapple gummy bear but is really a flavor unto itself rather than really tasting like a pineapple. The gummy part seems to fight with the fruit flavor and it’s neither as punchy a fruit flavor as a gummy bear nor as thick and chewy as a gummy bear, but it has some of that authentic gummy bear flavor. I’d add INW Dragonfruit or TFA Dragonfruit and some sweetener and call it day if I just wanted to vape a white gummy bear. The mouthfeel is a little dry but very sweet. You can try using it lower as a gummy-additive but the white pineapple flavor might get in the way and although it tastes like a gummy bear it probably isn’t going to make a thin fruit seem much thicker.

There are so many gummy candy flavors I prefer over this one that I’d like to toss it, but the bottom line here is that I need it to mix Concrete’s Giant Swan. I might not replace it when it runs out, but until then, I’m going to make mixing Giant Swan a TASK 6. And it is a task, too, just look at all those ingredients.

While we’ve got the 27 Bears out, I’ve been meaning to try Alfred Pudding’s Stardrop, so I’ll just make that my next TASK 7.

Anyone else have another recipe that might be another a reason to keep 27 Bears around?

27 Fish

Less of an authentic Swedish Fish flavor and more of a generic very red cherryish berry candy flavor. Lots of Swedish Fish-like texture, thick and not quite gummy but not quite red licorice-level chewy either. A bit waxy, not overwhelmingly but accurately so. The flavor itself seems to take a backseat to all that texture and could use a boost from another fruit, but that muted red flavor seems like it would make it more versatile as a candy texturizer flavor than a bolder, more accurate Swedish Fish flavor. So while not the most accurate Swedish fish flavor, almost certainly the most useful, which is often the case with flavors. Some added throat hit with this one, but nowhere near as much as with TFA Swedish Fish. .

I need this to mix Graham DigitalDrop’s (RIP) Lic Her..ish recipe, which I found to be ridiculously accurate strawberry Twizzlers vape. Mixing some more of that is my next TASK 8

There are quite a few other recipes out there using 27 Fish that I want to try, too.

Wild Fish by crash0verride77. WF Wild Berry Gummy is a gem TASK 9

MlNikon’s Red Gummy Bear. She had me at WF Strawberry Gummy Candy. TASK 10

And finally, Mango Bear by Ckemist. Because I’ve been meaning to try 27 Fish mixed with mango and want to see how someone else did it first before I go any further down that road. TASK 11

That’s it for now, I’m already behind on tasting my previous tasks and now I’ve got 11 more to do before Part 3.

New Flavor Count: 2,952