Flavour Art Black Jack Vintage

Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.13 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.

Testing: FA Black Jack Vintage @ 1 and 2.5%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days.

Flavor Description: This is one of the Flavourart UK blends that I picked up from Chef's. I think these are pretty much designed as one-shots. This one is supposed to be based on these UK Black Jack candies, but to my sad, sad american palate it seems really close to Black Jack Gum. According to the wikipedia, Black Jack Gum is also an aniseed flavor so maybe it's similar? Anyway, kind of tastes like FA Black Touch turned into a gum. Warm, more herbal licorice root flavor than a sharper anise. Tastes closer to black licorice, or at the natural kind of licorice from FA Black Touch, than it does some really anise heavy flavor like absinthe. Dry at the front, but leaves a pretty noticeable gelatin-based candy stickiness on your palate at the end. Some weird chest tightness, especially above 2%. Seems to be fairly strong, I'd recommend use at .5% for an accent or 1% for a primary flavor or solo with a bit of cooling.

Inhale is mostly dry licorice root. Kind of hard to tell where licorice ends and anise begins, but this has more of a herbal note that I associate with good licorice than sharper anise. Medium sweet, but a little hard to take full inhales. I'm thinking it's something beyond the dryness. Exhale has more of that herbal licorice right up front. Actually seems to be crossing into a horehound flavor a bit. Some higher, sort of easy to miss anise top notes. Front of the exhale also has a pretty tangible chalky texture, and maybe even a bit of powdery taste to it. Tail end of the exhale still has quite a bit of that black touch ish licorice, but there is a clearer anise flavor back there. Texture gets interesting quick, as it bounces from that powdery texture up front to a really sticky finish, leaving almost a gelatinous mouthfeel... on top of that dry texture. It's weird, and a bit hard to vape. Doesn't taste bad though.

Off-flavors: I haven't had the inspiration for the flavor, so it's hard to say. If the aniseed from the black jack candies tastes like the aniseed from the black jack gum, then it's pretty similar. It's odd for a flavor to have both a chalky dryness and a gummy mouthfeel at the end, so that probably counts.

Throat Hit: Not too much traditional throat hit, but this is wreaking some havoc on my chest. I don't know if it's the dryness or maybe just one of the volatiles in here, but it's physically a bit hard for me to vape at 2% and above.

Uses & Pairings: A little bit of cooling goes a long way to cleaning up this flavor. Before I did a SFT, I was using this at 2% with a couple drops of FLV Cool Menthol per 30 ml and it was making a world of difference. The cooling really does seem to thin this out and let you enjoy more of the flavor without running into that weird chest tightness or sticky mouthfeel at the end. With that little bit of cooling, it's spot on for blackjack gum.

You could probably accent around this to bring in some of the heavier aniseed flavor it seems like it may or may not be missing. Should take a bit of Absinthe (go full euro with your DV Absinthe) pretty well. I'd stay away from a straight anise concentrate, as those tend to be more of a bakery rather than candy anise note.

Additionally, this could be interesting swapping this out for FA black touch in a licorice recipe that needs some extra body. I also think it would be a great base to build a licorice candy around, especially one using sweet dark berries like FA Blackcurrant.

Notes: Concentration testing, this is still pretty potent despite the "blend" status. It's present at .25 but weak. Pretty much the same thing at .5%, but you're getting some of the very black touch-esque licorice note and some sharper anise. Still a bit undersweet, but could probably be used as an accent this low. By 1% I'm getting a lot of what I want out of the flavor. Herbal licorice, lighter anise towards the end. Pretty dry though, especially up front. I'm getting a jelly candy stickiness after that chalky gum note up front. It's a little odd. 1.5% doesn't really seem to improve much, just a bit dryer and sweeter. Licorice is getting more prominent, anise is kind of fading into the background. 2% is even more of the same, dryer, heavy on the licorice. Getting a bit hard to vape this high. 2.5% isn't unvapeable, but I'm not really enjoying it and it seems to cross over into some chest tightness.

Second Opinions:

5 out of 7 reviews for this on vapeable.com are 5 stars. A couple of users say it tastes just like the Black Jack candies. Both of the negative reviews complain about a lack of aniseed flavor.

Couple of notes on ELR. User "martyndance" says: " Bit too overpowering even at 1%." User "chewy" says: "Very true to the Black Jack taste!"

Here's the product page from Flavourart UK. It's for all their blended flavors, but there is an actual description buried on there: "Black Jack Vintage was inspired by my memories of being able to buy sweets called Black Jacks four for a penny, an old, pre-decimal penny in the 1960s! The unmistakeable dark aniseed taste, enhanced with a couple of other background flavours, is reproduced as an eliquid you can vape and savour. One definite advantage of vaping Black Jack is that it will not turn your tongue black as the sweets used to! Nowadays the sweets just turn it grey. In today's currency, one 1960s Black Jack would cost just 0.1042 pence, ah nostalgia isn't what it used to be!"

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