Flavorah Donuts

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

Testing: FLV Donuts @ 1% and 1 drop per 10 ml (about .25%), 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 16 days.

Flavor Description: So, right off the bat this isn't everyone's cup of tea. Check the second opinions.

I get a deep, sweet, doughy bread flavor with a bit of yeast. More like a vaguely sweet dinner roll fresh from the oven. Dense, warm, and a bit waxy mouthfeel. Maybe a light fried note here, but it's fairly subtle as far as these things go. Solo, not really a great donut, but should work well with a cakier concentrate like Yellow Cake, or FA Zeppola to build a dense, yeast-risen donut flavor. On the ridiculously potent side, so start really low (like 1 drop per 30ml) and work up to maybe .3-.4%.

Inhale is sweet and warm, seriously like inhaling the burst of air from the oven when you pull out dinner rolls but with a kind of odd sharp powdered sugar note. Dense. I don't find the sweetness here cloying, but it's definitely pushing the limits for a bready flavor. Exhale has a dense, sweet yeast-risen dough kind of taste. No crispiness to speak off, so it really does come across more like dough than a donut. I get some light yeasty notes up top, with a drier, slightly powdery sugar. Sweetness in the base is separate, and feels very much baked in as opposed to dumped over the top of a dough base. Small bit of a yeasty sourness in there, but not too aggressive at .25%. Clean finish overall, with just a tiny bit of a bitter tinge.

Off-flavors: Well, I don't get anything in the way of play-dough out of this, which is positive for a donut. A bit waxy though, and the sweet note is just a bit sharp, almost like powdered sugar. At higher concentrations, people report a stale beer kind of taste. At lower percentages, I get just a slight hit of sourness overall, but I think it complements the body and the sweetness pretty well.

Throat Hit: Inhale is just a bit sharper than you'd expect, but no harshness on the exhale.

Uses & Pairings: This is not a solo donut flavor. It's more like a fresh, warm sweet dough additive than anything else. This has very little in the way of a crisp or grainy texture, and as such is going to need to some work to make it really read as a finished bakery product. I'd use this low, and then bring in your AP or AP substitute flavor to give this some drier bakery volume to hang onto. It's hard to escape the comparison, but use is a lot like FA Joy.

Notes: For the love of god, start low. This is going to dominate a mix if you use any kind of a heavy hand. Seriously, either make a dilution or start at 1 drop per 30ml and work up. I get a nice clear, relatively clean sweet dough from this at .25%, and by .5% it's starting to get a bit heavy and sour. 1% isn't a good time, that sourness is starting to come across pretty clearly.

This is basically in the same family as FA Joy. I think this is a little less oily, sugary, and sour. It's also fairly close, at least in function to FLV Sweet Dough and FLV Fried Dough. I definitely get less oil and yeast from this than Fried Dough, and I think this is fuller and sweeter than Sweet Dough but with maybe a touch more yeast, reading more like dough than the sweet dough for all that sense that makes.

Second Opinions:

So this right here merits the disclaimer on the top of the review. /u/MrBurgundy314, in a FOTW for Doughnut reports:

"FLV Donut is the most vile flavor I've ever tasted. One drop in 30ml will ruin your mix. It's gross. Absolutely fucking disgusting. It isn't "fried" flavor. It isn't beer. It's like a fucking yeast-infected belly button. It's. Fucking. Disgusting."

I'm obviously a bit more positive on this, but it's worth noting that if you aren't into FA Joy, you should probably steer well clear of this.

In the same FOTW, /u/chewymidget states:

"If you do not like FA Joy do not buy this flavor!... It is concentrated. I didn't use more than .4% to start to really get a flavor from it. This isn't an actually full flavored fried donut. It's in the same realm as FA Joy without the funky wax or beer notes at low percentages. If you use too much of this stuff it will over take the entire mix and has a potential to start to get funky. This is were it would have potential to start to taste of stale beer. You would use this to bring out a fried pastry flavor."

This one actually has one star on ELR, but it's based on a note posted by, what I can only assume is the same Burgundy as the previous mention. I actually really like their notes here:

"A little too yeasty for me. It isn't at all play dough like CAP, but it's almost sour. Honestly, it reminds me of a few attempts I, and others, have made utilizing Joy, Meringue, and maybe something else. Very similar to Joy. This one is super potent. 0.25% is more than enough for single flavor, although I don't recommend it as a single flavor. Give it grain with the likes of Cheesecake (Graham Crust), Meringue, Sugar Cookie, or something else along those lines and it's more palatable. It isn't even close to the donut I was hoping for. Bummer!"

And here is the FLV product page. Their description: "Strong fried cake donut flavor, can be used at a very low percentage for effect. At higher percentage it will overwhelm more subtle bakery notes and base flavors." I think you'd kind of need some texture to call this a cake donut flavor, and I definitely get some yeast in here. At least they tell you to mix low. Although the recommended usage on their safety sheet is 1-5%. You definitely shouldn't do that.

DIY_eJuice Flavor Reviews

META: So, I've made the orders from the list generated by y'all on this post. The good news is that I fit pretty much everything specific on there, barring out of stocks. I've also had some Lotus Flower stuff sitting around forever which I'll finally knuckle down and figure out how to review. Look for reviews form that list to start popping up in about a week and a half. Thank you to everyone who played along.