Flavorah Apricot

FLV has provided this flavour, along with the other pre-release concentrates for the purpose of testing and review

Set-up - Plume Veil RDA with dual 7 wrap 24g round wire, vaped at 45 watts.

Testing - 1.5, 2, and 3% with a three day steep

General Notes - a balanced apricot / peach concentrate with subtle hints of a cooked or baked element. Some back end bright, tart, fresh fruit notes. Imagine a subdued version of FA Apricot with a touch of caramelized sugar.

While FA is overpowering, super bright, and potent, FLV's addition to the Apricot realm is something significantly more versatile and forgiving. More of a sweetened and generalized stone fruit profile than a truly ripe apricot, but this is not a bad thing.

No rind, peel, or skin notes to be had here. The best comparison to be made is like taking the essence of a baked apricot. There is some hint of warmth in the profile, but overall, it's just a soft, caramelized apricot / peach.

Off Notes - nothing, aside for the to-be-expected throatiness of an apricot concentrate. Thanks to the /u/ID10-T aka the DIY Science Bitch, I found out that the offender for that throat hit that rips me apart in peach and apricot concentrates is called linalool. So again, no real off notes in terms of flavour, but if you're sensitive to peach throat hit, this one will give you a little bit of irritation.

Percentage - At 1.5%, there was not a whole lot of flavour going on, it was there in spirit, but the subtle nuances were next to nothing. 2% was what I found to be the sweet spot if we were trying to use this concentrate in a mix. Here, it's definitely got some potent flavour, while still providing those hints of bakery elements to add authenticity to a baked profile, or some interesting complexities to a purely fruit based recipe. 3% and above is where we would stay for a standalone vape. Everything is just amplified the higher it goes, and it never seems to really get offensive. I did not test higher than 5%, however, so keep that in mind if making a standalone vape with FLV Apricot.

Additional Observation - while the king of these flavour reviews is obviously my boy /u/ConcreteRiver , I figured I'd try my hand at suggesting additional usage and pairing.

While vaping this tester at the given percentages, I found 2 - 2.5% to be my favourite. Aside from the obvious profile of apricot with back end bakery elements, there were some interesting notes buried within this concentrate that may be beneficial for flavour bending.

On occasion, there is a slight hint of something tropical in this one, mostly on the exhale and aftertaste. This is most likely due to the nature of an apricot in general, being both sweet and tart at the same time. However, this hint of tropical fruit note will play well as an accent or an enhancer for that kind of profile.

Furthermore, the slight baked notes in here (I mainly get brown sugar and some pie crust or crumble type note) will work really nicely in any sort of baked apricot, pie, or cupcake recipe. Going more the route I'm accustomed to, adding any sort of whiskey or bourbon concentrate here will work beautifully. This, in particular, will work better with alcohols and tobaccos than FA Apricot due to the subdued nature of FLV's version. Really, the applications are fairly versatile. Play around with profiles you like, see what works, and enjoy.

Overall Rating - of this third round of flavours, this one was the one I was most excited for, and FLV did not disappoint. I like that we're getting a more versatile and slightly baked apricot here. Obviously, the throat hit sucks for me, but that's not going to be a detriment to the score, since that is a personal problem. I like this concentrate, and I'll be using it in future recipes, as well as in a revisit of my RootKit recipe (apricot tobacco).

Great job FLV, your attempt at an Apricot is getting a solid 4/5 from me.

Cheers.