Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are, but Part 6 actually is close, in fact it’s RIGHT HERE.

Starting Flavor Count: 2,885 (Down from 2,975 Originally)

TASK OR TRASH - Each flavor gets assigned a task or goes in the trash.

#CAPELLA

This is going to be an all-Capella chapter of Getting Rid of Most of My Flavors. Not to be confused with an acapella chapter, don’t worry, I won’t be serenading anyone today.

27 Fish

Update on this one, after trying several recipes, I’ve decided that my only reason for keeping it is being able to make Lic Her...Ish... and that’s ok. The bottle I made for Part 2 disappeared quickly and has been gone for some time. It’s time to make making more a TASK 1. I vape it in memoriam. Rest in peace, moonfighter.

Apple Snacks

Update. After trying two Apple Jacks recipes that used it, I remembered that Apple Jacks was never among my favorite cereals so even the best recipes for it are never going to be among my most favorite recipes. It’s a great Apple Jacks cereal flavor, but that is just not really something I need in my life. TRASH 1

Pina Colada V2

V1 has been discontinued, I think. V2 is artificial coconut with a hint of pineapple. Coconut kind of tastes like coconut snow cone syrup. It might be a good coconut for snow cone. Maybe for a Tiger’s Blood snow cone flavor (coconut, strawberry, watermelon) as it tastes like the little bit of pineapple could be covered up fairly easily. It almost certainly would work as a substitute for TFA Coconut Candy in my 1-2-3 Ocean Water recipe but you’d need more than 1% sub for the coconut candy, probably more like 2.5%. This is not bad as a coconut flavor. But it is not a pina colada.

There’s not a single recipe on ATF that uses this. And none of the ones on ELR really looked like they would float my boat.

Fine, then. I’ll make my own Tiger’s Blood.

Tiger’s Blood Attempt V1 TASK 2

Co. | Flavor | % ---|---|---- RFSC | Strawberry | 3 CAP | Pina Colada V2| 4 PUR | Watermelon | 5 CAP | Hibiscus | 1 BCF | WS 23 (30%) | 0.5 BNDR | Blackjack | 21 BNDR | Hookers | 69

Pink Lemonade

I STILL don’t really know what makes pink lemonade pink. Most say it’s a bit of berry but there’s some disagreement about which one - strawberry, raspberry, cranberry? I’ve even heard grape and pomegranate. But after trying some lemonades and pink lemonades side by side, I’m pretty sure it’s just Red #40 or whatever. If you blindfolded me and had me drink some lemonade I’m not sure I could tell whether it was pink lemonade or lemonade. But if you had me drink both lemonade and pink lemonade by the same company I’m fairly certain I could tell you which one is the pink one. They just taste pinker, and I’m sorry I can’t make any more sense of it than that.

CAP Pink Lemonade is sweet and candylike, very - almost violently - artificial lemon, no real lemon at all. Bright with some acidity and tartness not unlike powdered lemonade mix. Just a little floral and pledge-y at 4%.. Not a bold flavor at 4% but I’m not sure I want to try it higher because I’m afraid those off notes will come up, also slightly above average harshness and don’t want to increase it. When comes to Pink Lemonade flavors I definitely prefer Liquid Barn’s, and there isn’t anything I really want to make out of it, not interested in Pink Punch Lemonade clones. TRASH 2

Pomegranate V2

I think V1 is discontinued. This is NOT butyric - no reason to be scared of the V2. 3% is good, kind of a syrupy, candy pomegranate, think cherry/cranberry candy with raspberry and a little grape, not far from grenadine but not nearly as sugary sweet, probably never going to be the main flavor in a mix, kind of a push over, little hard plastic off note at 5%. No floral edge like FA or TFA. It is a bit waxy as opposed to juicy, has a dense character but not as much deep saturation of flavor as some of the other pomegranate flavors.

As bad as CAP Grenadine was, I was prepared for this to be much, much worse. It’s still not great, but it’s really not that bad at all. I want to toss it, but I want to at least try Smootchie first. I’m kind of a sucker for the lots of fruit, little bit of cream type of recipe. TASK 3

Powerful Sour

Do not buy this just because it’s the most sour, it’s actually terrible. Smells like maybe someone decided to try the acetic acid route to sour. Very weird, since other sour additives were odorless to nearly odorless, but just opening the concentrate bottle to mix it I was blown back in my chair by the odor, it’s a potent smell. It really is the most sour, or the closest to sour, out of all of the additives I have tried, at least at the concentrations I tried them, but it’s simultaneously very disgusting. It’s the wrong kind of sour. It tastes like that hot water bottle hanging in my grandma's shower. At least, I thought it was a hot water bottle, until I later found out it was a literal douche bag. So like vinegar, basically, but with a dash of granny's hoo-ha. Maybe not literally my grandma’s vagina, but vinegar plus something worse than vinegar, something a little rotten. It’s foul. Licked some, it really is very sour, and I did not get that weird earthy off note, but it’s still the wrong kind of sour. It might be good in a salad dressing or something like that. TRASH 3

Pralines & Cream

Tastes like hazelnut coffee creamer mixed with maple syrup. I don’t know what’s praline-y about it. It’s nutty. The nut tastes a lot more like hazelnut than the pecan I usually think about when someone says praline. It’s got some caramely sugary stuff going on but that tastes as much like maple syrup as it does caramelized sugar. It’s got a lot of cream underneath all that stuff, but not quite enough thickness and richness to really resemble ice cream; it’s a lot more like non dairy coffee creamer.

Another one I’d be fine with chucking, but I want to at least try this Hazal 3 2 1 first even though I have no idea what the mixer is going on about regarding chocolate notes. I did not get any chocolate notes from CAP Pralines & Cream. TASK 4

Pumpkin Spice

Just a terrible nutmeg and clove duo and that’s about all there is to it. It’s intensely nutmeggy with some clove behind it and a strong burning paper off note. Like you just lit a wad of paper on fire and tried to douse it with nutmeg and a little clove or are trying to kill yourself by smoking nutmeg rolled in notebook paper. It’s hard to tell when the cotton is getting dry when it pretty much tastes like it is when it’s soaking wet. Really, CAP Pumpkin Pie Spice is truly awful stuff, and it’s going directly into the TRASH 4

Rainbow Candy

Very tart and somewhat sweet kinda fruity candy thing. Some throat hit, about what I’d expect with this level of tartness. Tartness is its most defining characteristic. This is not Skittles, it’s nowhere near fruity enough for Skittles. I can’t pick out any specific fruit from this, but it’s bright and lightly fruity. Maybe some lemon and lime with darker grape-berry candy fruit behind it, but more freestyle top note tartness than a specific tart fruit. There’s some dry chalky sweetness under that and it comes across more like a Spree or Sweet-Tart base than a Skittle. Seems like this could be a better tart additive for fruit candy than a bunch of the other stuff called “Sour.”

I can’t trash Rainbow Candy just yet because I need it for one of the recipes from my Part 6 to-do list. Went looking for another one. Seeing Gamer Fuel did NOT make me regret throwing out CAP Chocolate Glazed Donut, although maybe I’m just losing my sense of adventure as I get longer in the tooth. Hopefully I won’t regret fishing out the huge long list of flavors needed to mix Skittles Classic Candy by the Humanpuck. TASK 5

Raspberry

It’s like steeping raspberry blossoms and stems in raspberry syrup. It’s definitely a raspberry but it’s a pretty messed raspberry, with some tart but green, floral top notes and very full, thick raspberry syrup base. Could go for this raspberry syrup thing, but the floral perfume on top is a problem, and even then, it’s a bit bitter, and not super flavorful. The green-ish floral thing is less prominent at 2% than it was at 3% and it might be possible to tame it completely and make something good, but it’s even less flavorful at 2% versus 3%, so I don’t think that off note is over flavoring, it’s just what CAP Raspberry tastes like. Also worth noting a little throat hit with this one, both at 2% and 3%.

So many great raspberry flavors available, what do I need this one for? Probably nothing, I imagine it’s going to the garbage, but I will at least try ‘Member Berries first. TASK 6

Raspberry V2

CAP Raspberry V2 isn’t very different from V1, but it is a little better. It’s more flavorful, and a little more fresh and juicy, a little more tart, sweeter while at the same time not quite as thick. Still has the greenish floral thing. So if CAP Raspberry V1 is steeping raspberry blossoms and stems in raspberry syrup, this is just raspberry blossoms and stems steeped in a looser syrup, with maybe some real raspberry or raspberry juice involved in making it. Those green floral top notes in CAP Raspberry V2 still pretty much ruin it for me for most things, though this might be my pick for a raspberry tea or a raspberry mix with florals. It is less annoying at 2% vs. 3%, without really sacrificing flavor. So I’d keep CAP Raspberry V2 under 3%. Or rather, you should keep it under 3%. I’m going to put it in the TRASH 5 because there isn't anything I want to do with it.

Rhubarb

Doesn’t taste “bad” at all to me, but doesn’t really taste like rhubarb, I wouldn’t know it was supposed to be rhubarb if it didn’t say it on the bottle. It tastes like some kind of very weird candy that’s tart and a little green tasting. But if you told me it was supposed to be green apple or green grape or underripe strawberry candy, I’d believe that just as easily as believing it is supposed to be rhubarb. Gooseberry, maybe? CAP Rhubarb tastes like candy based on someone’s idea of what a raw and unripe gooseberry tastes like. Very sweet and candy-like.

Fine, I’ll try this rhabarberbarbara, just to be sure I don’t really need CAP Rhubarb. TASK 7

Ripe Strawberries

One of the best strawberry flavors I’ve tried. A realistic strawberry, with deep, thick flavor, and very dark syrupy sweetness. Dark enough that it’s like there’s a blueberry or two in there with the strawberry. Not a fresh strawberry. Very nearly a cooked strawberry like a strawberry pie, or at the very least, those frozen strawberries, thawed out, all mushy and extra sweet. Delivers a ton of flavor without tasting off if you want that goopey super ripe pile of sweet strawberry goodness.

I’ve got some recipes to mix!

This Simple Sugar Strawberry Cookie is kinda what I had in mind when I went looking for a CAP Ripe Strawberries recipe to mix, and I bet it’s going to be deeeeelicious. Good thing I haven’t thrown out CAP Butter Cream yet. TASK 8

Simplistic Squeezed Strawberry TASK 9

Even Sides TASK 10

An Actual Strawberry Cheese Shake TASK 11

Bizarro Custard TASK 12

Root Beer

Would you look at that? Another bottle that never got opened.

I will mix 4 and 8% samples. TASK 13

Shortbread

It does not taste like any kind of shortbread I’ve ever tasted, but it is yummy as hell. It’s hard to describe exactly what it tastes like but if you’ve ever eaten Honeycomb Cereal - it’s very similar to that. Light (not heavy and rich) not buttery, grainy crisp bakery with some honey-like sweetness. If it were just a little less boring by itself, I could vape the crap out of it all by itself, because it is so tasty. Can’t wait to try some mixes with it!

Sugar Mamma TASK 14

Lemon Dance TASK 15

Blueberry Cream Cookies TASK 16

Apple Custard Cake TASK 17

Simply Vanilla

Bright, I’d even call it loud, artificial vanilla up front with a very sweet and very smooth but somewhat thin and bland base. Very candy-like. Not floral at 2% but I could see where it would go that way at just a little higher concentration. I hear it can mute top notes, which could be useful, especially if it could work without adding too much vanilla, but I can't see that happening because the vanilla here is pretty bold. So you’d basically be trading whatever top note you want to calm down with a vanilla that needs to take a chill pill. Didn’t see anything I wanted to mix with it, but I have an old, unshared recipe that might benefit from this type of vanilla, and I want to give that a shot before tossing it.

This is the recipe. You won’t find it on my ATF, initially due to a deal with Wizard Labs, and now, because I think there’s room for improvement and I want to explore that before putting it all the way out there.

Climbing

Co. | Flavor | % ---|---|---- TFA | Key Lime | 3.5 CAP | Lemon Lime | 1.5 FLV | Lime | 0.25 FA | Oba Oba | 1 TFA | Vanilla Swirl | 2 TFA | Sweetener | 1

It’s been awhile, so I should probably mix the original first for comparison. TASK 18

This is what I’m thinking with the Simply Vanilla:

Climbing Higher V1 TASK 19

Co. | Flavor | % ---|---|---- TFA | Key Lime | 3.5 CAP | Lemon Lime |1.5 FLV | Lime | 0.25 FA | Oba Oba | 1 TFA | Vanilla Swirl | 1 CAP | Simply Vanilla | 1 CAP | Super Sweet | 0.25

A lot of work went into balancing the lime and vanilla candy the first time around, so I don’t expect this first version to be perfect, but I do hope it makes clear whether CAP Simply Vanilla is a direction I want to go in.

Sticky Bun

Yum! Tastes like a cinnamon roll without the cinnamon. Years and years ago I tried to make the best Honey Bun vape I could with the ingredients I had. If this had existed at the time, it would have been so much easier and better, just CAP Sticky Bun, some honey, some cinnamon, and maybe some frosting, and done. It already has a bit of a honey taste and an indistinct spice note that’s very very light and might be cinnamon. For the most part, it’s just buttery sweet bread with brown sugar and some kind of sweet sugary glaze.

New Honey Bun V1 TASK 20

Co. | Flavor | % ---|---|---- CAP| Sticky Bun | 6 CAP| Cinnamon Sugar | 1 VSO | Honey | 1.5 WF | Glazed Donut | 1.5 CAP | Frosting | 1.5 FW | Sweetener | 0.5

Sticky Bun being almost there all by itself, I think this will work. The cinnamon spice in these things is subtle, but I want to emphasize that the vague, light spice note is in fact cinnamon. I think a small amount of CAP Cinnamon Sugar will do it, but if it doesn’t seem to work, there are other options I’ll try replacing it with, like FW Cinnamon Roll, FW Caramel Cinnamon Roll, FLV Cinnamon Crunch, just off the top of my head. Back in the day I discovered that when mixed with cinnamon, FA Butterscotch comes across tasting a lot like honey. I’m going to try VSO Honey first as it is my new favorite non-disgusting honey flavor, but if it doesn’t work I might try another or go back to that old FA Butterscotch trick. WF Glazed Donut is there to reinforce the mass-produced, soybean oil-infusedness of the honey bun. To Little Debbie-ize it. I might switch to trying to see if I can make a little bit of WF Deep Fried Pastry Dough work if the Donut doesn’t. And finally, CAP Frosting, because why not frost that fucker with trashy frosting? If it winds up being too loud I’ll try again with OoO Vanilla Frosting.

Strawberries & Cream

Less of a strawberry and cream than a slightly creamy strawberry candy, like melting down a strawberry and cream sucker and then watering that down. Pretty weak, not a ton of overall flavor from it at 4%. Tastes like very artificial strawberry - nothing natural here - but at the same time, not the same as CAP Sweet Strawberry, as it’s darker and has even more of a jammy sweetness. Cream part is mostly lacking or blended with the strawberry, giving it the feel of an overly thin cream without a solid cream taste.

I want to toss it on principle - the principle being that anything you could make by mixing your two favorite strawberries and two favorite creams together stands about a 99% chance of being better than any “strawberry & cream” flavoring. But there are a couple of recipes I might need to try first:

Strawnana Love TASK 21

Nancy Pelosi on Acid TASK 22

Strawberry Taffy

Does have a taffy-esque slightly tangy strawberry candy flavor with a sticky sweet type of base but it’s also a soft flavor, not a lot of punch to it, and cranking it up just makes it get too waxy and weird without oomph-ing the strawberry. Easy fix, right? Just keep it fairly low (like 4%, 6% is where the weird waxiness starts for me. I looked at dozens of recipes using it and the one that wound up being most interesting to me was this Raspberry Gummy, so that recipe’s TASK 23 is to try to convince me I need CAP Strawberry Taffy when there are plenty of other strawberry and taffy flavors I can play with.

Sugar Cookie

You’re outside of your whole mind if you think there’s a chance I’m parting with this anytime soon. It’s definitely one of my favorite flavors. Not that it’s perfect or anything, but I still love it. It does have its detractors. Some find it too soft, not enough crunch to it, some find it too distinctive, some get various off notes from it... I don’t know, basically you can’t please everybody. I also think there is almost no excuse not to have this flavor. It’s almost worth buying for the room note alone; it makes people swear someone is baking sugar cookies nearby. It doesn’t vape with quite that much authenticity but that's what makes it such a versatile, indispensable bakery ingredient. Used high (at least 4%, on up to 8%) it’s a rich, thick, buttery and slightly grainy baked good mostly reminiscent of a soft, mass-produced or “slice and bake”-type of sugar cookie. It blends well with other ingredients and can be the base for pretty much any baked thing you want it to be with the right helpers. It is not a cookie with a dry, crisp snap, at all. It doesn't take much to turn it into a dense cake base, or, say, a shortbread layer. Used lower, it can fill in cracks in other baked things and bring texture and fullness where it might be missing. Of note, there’s some ethyl alcohol in here, not very much, but some, and if especially if you’re sensitive to it, it will need some time to steep out. “Breathing” your mix is something I wouldn’t normally advocate at all - it allows those precious aroma volatiles to escape - but depending on what else is in there, something with a large amount of CAP Sugar Cookie in there might benefit from that in lieu of waiting out a longer steep.

The question is, what do I feel like mixing with it right now?

I’ll take any excuse to mix myself some Mango Blossom Macaron. Except someone said it isn't almondy enough for a macaron so I'm going try bumping the amount of FA Almond in there up just a tish this time. TASK 24

I’ll finally try this Holiday Pie that people have raved about. TASK 25

And I’ll make some New Pistachio RY4 because of how much I loved Charlie Noble’s Pistachio RY4, maybe I’ll like this one too, or get inspired to make and even better one. TASK 26

Sugar Cookie V2

Spoiled milk sourness. Not all CAP V2’s and TFA DX’s have taken out the yummy diketones and replaced them with barf, some just took out the diketones and otherwise tinkered with the flavor a bit. Unfortunately, this is one of the barf ones. Fortunately, the barf is very light and comes across more like an odd sourness than a hint of full-on vomit. It’s not very buttery. It mostly comes across like a soft-baked sugar cookie with a noticeable amount of vanilla in the dough. It’s a little drier and nuttier than its V1 counterpart, right up front, but still soft-baked overall. The slight weird sourness comes in the finish and lingers, which is unfortunate, but it tastes like another flavor with a strong finish could probably cover it up adequately in a mix.
Once upon a time I’d have found a way to make this work for me but I feel too old to deal with barfy off-notes anymore. Someone with more energy can figure it out, or people who aren’t sensitive to butyric acid can enjoy it. Whatever, I’m out. TRASH 6

CAP Super Sweet

It’s like eating a Splenda packet. Once for science I mixed it at 2% and tried vaping that alone. It tastes very sweet, too sweet, with a weird chemical edge to it, and even though it isn’t what I’d call harsh in the way bad nicotine or harsh flavors are harsh, it was hard to vape both because it made me feel in my chest and throat like I’m going to cough, and because it’s sickeningly sweet at 2%. Also after 5 ml my coils were a little dirty and my wicks were butt ugly. I’ve had plenty of recipes where I enjoyed it at 0.25 to 0.5%, at least once, even 0.75%, but I’ve also had recipes that were more or less ruined by it at 0.5%, so it depends. The important thing, for me, is that some part of the recipe finishes really strong and is able to hang in with that lingering sucralose. Otherwise, rather than just making your vape sweetener, it’s like you’ve just dumped some splenda into your mouth after your vape, and that’s just weird.

When it comes down to it, if I feel like I need to eliminate a sweetener or two to get that flavor count lower, FW Sweetener is going to survive longer than CAP Super Sweet. It’s just more versatile (and I have a giant bottle of it to use up or waste). But for now, I’m just going through and clearing out flavors that are plain bad, super difficult, useless to me for some other reason, or just (in my opinion) very inferior to other, similar flavors. Super Sweet is not one of those.

I’m going to try this brand new Punk Rock Peach recipe because SSA Sweet Type Peach is AWESOME and for the phrase “riding buck naked on a Big Wheel.” I better feel like I’m doing that while vaping it or I’m going to be so disappointed. TASK 27

And Sam’s Caramel Apple Popcorn. If it’s bad the review is going to be ruthless. TASK 28

And my personal best recipe that uses CAP Super Sweet, Viserion. But someone told me he likes to add “a little” WF Blueberry Gummy Candy to it, and that sounds pretty good to me. I don’t know how much “a little” is, but I’ll try adding 1% of it to Viserion for my last TASK 29 this week. Why 1%? To make the total flavor in that thing a nice round 20%.

This is a good natural resting place. Next I’ll start by diving into the 11 Capella flavors I have that start with the word “sweet,” and maybe finish out the rest of the CAPs while I’m at it.

New Flavor Count: 2,879

Not sure whether I'm terrible at getting rid of flavors or if it's just that this part of the alphabet is where all the best CAP flavors are.