Flavorah Cucumber
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: FLV Cucumber @ 1% and 1 drop per 10ml (about .25%), 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 9 days.
Flavor Description: First, shoutout to /u/Zermacht/, because my review of this is pretty heavily colored by their review of RF Cucumber. I get a sweet and slightly dry, peel-heavy version of cucumber with a bit of a salty tinge. Less astringent and green than FA Cucumber, but not nearly as juicy as CAP Cucumber. If you've made tzatziki sauce and done the thing where you salt the cucumber and press it to get some of the water out... this kind of tastes like that.
Inhale is salty and a bit sharp, with a higher realistic cucumber top note. On the lighter side, with a pretty solid and slightly out-of-place sweetness. Exhale has that same slightly salty cucumber taste up front. Not a really strong flavor, sort of like a grassy honeydew with a bit of salt. Higher peel notes, fairly strong but not overpowering and very realistic tasting. Sweet but lighter mouthfeel. Sweetness is a bit hard to describe, but it's definitely a greener vegetal sweetness. That sweetness is, for me at least, a bit offputting at higher percentages. Exhale is fairly clean, but I get some lingering artificial-tasting cucumber flavor.
Off-flavors: Good amount of skin on this. It's definitely cucumber skin, so it's not "off"... but it's skin-heavy nonetheless. Again, hat tip to u/zermacht/, I'm getting some saltiness that seems to up the dryness a bit.
Throat Hit: Nah, not really.
Uses & Pairings: Standard cucumber pairings are melons, citrus, and mints. Basically anything "refreshing."
Cucumbers add some freshness to brighter flavors like strawberry.
The vegetal part of this works well to soften up a stronger basil flavor like FLV Basil or FA Zen Garden.
Works well in cocktail recipes, especially with gin. The relative dryness of this makes CAP Cucumber a better choice if you're mostly after juiciness.
Notes: Concentration testing, at .25% this seems a bit too light. Some bright cucumber top notes, but no real body to it. Some raw VG here. .5% has bit of dryer body and stronger top notes, but still not quite a full cucumber flavor. 1% starts to fill out substantially. Top notes are like freshly sliced cucumber, although the body is a little flat and fairly dry for a cucumber. 1.5% has a sweet green body and pronounced peel notes. At 2%, the sweetness here doesn't really sit right with me. The flavor is full but not really crisp, so it gets pretty weird. I'd recommend starting with this at 1% and working up.
Seems like it'll be more useful for the top notes than anything else. Lacking some of the juicier cucumber body that I want.
Second Opinions:
Nah, not really.