Decadent Vapours Dandelion and Burdock
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.17 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Decadent Vapours Dandelion and Burdock @ %3, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 24 days.
Flavor Description: Bitter and darkly herbal, complex and sweet enough for the base for an herbal liqueur.
Inhale is deeply sweet with a slight sourness. A deep kind of sassafras herbal note with moderate density. Exhale opens up with a herbal dandelion flavor with some bitter anise-y top notes. Again, herbal but not that kind of swampy vegetal type of taste you get from overcooked greens. Hard to find an exact analogue, but it's built like FW Sassafras although it doesn't really taste anything like it. Some lingering horehound hard candy kind of sugary mouthfeel and bitter dandelion top notes.
Off-flavors: I've never had actual dandelion and burdock soda, so I have no clue. Nothing seems out of place though.
Throat Hit: Light, mostly chest tightness on the inhale.
Uses & Pairings: I picked this up exclusively because I thought it might be a good base for something like an Italian Amaro, and I think it fits the bill. It's herbal, bitter, and sweet without being like a swampy vegetal flavor. I think the thinness here is the major drawback, and you'll have to do something to address that without taking the concentrate in an astringent direction. I'm thinking a soda base will be the play, so I'll be mixing this with FA Cola for a take on an Argentinian Fernet and Coke. I also find myself wanting just a touch of mint in there, so INW Natural Mint for a spearmint. This concentrate could stand in for a Jagermeister base, if you want to avoid the weird flat anise-bomb style of existing concentrates.
Beyond cocktails, your guess is as good as mine. Good addition to INW Rhubarb to make it taste more like an authentic rhubarb. Might have a place in the right kind of fruit mix, but you're on your own there.
Notes:
S&V concentration testing, 3% is a bit weak. Still getting some raw cotton and vg taste around the edges of the flavor. At 4% I get more of a licorice taste. 5% is good, but pretty anise heavy.6% just gets me straight herbal anise and the bitterness is getting weird. I'd mix with this at 4% for a primary note, and 3% to add that herbal complexity in the background.
Yeah, probably a niche flavor but if you're remotely interested it's worth picking up. I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to work with this a bit more.
Second Opinions:
Damnit, /u/HocusKrokus. Just damnit.
Not a whole lot in the way of available information.
Here's the website. There's one review on there complaining about a lack of flavor at 20%. So there's that. I get plenty of flavor at 4-5%.
And here's a random wikipedia page on the flavor reference, because why not.
EDIT: Words are hard, I guess. Did some basic proofreading that I somehow missed on the first pass.