Flavorah Hazelnut
ConcreteRiver
This a a pre-release flavor, which was provided to me solely for the purposes of review.
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.14 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Hazelnut, .25, 1, and 3%, others noted, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 6 days.
Flavor Description: This is an fairly potent hazelnut flavor that starts off fairly easygoing but gets odd quickly.
This flavor seems a bit top heavy overall, with an aggressive raw hazelnut top note. I do get some base out of this at higher percentages, but that rawer hazelnut note starts to really pick up and gets very aggressive. Almost a bit astringent like hazelnut skin.
At lower percentages, there is actually a pretty solid hazelnut flavor in here. There's a softer body, with some very light roasted, warmer notes. I think there is some creaminess to the body here, but getting to it is a bit difficult with that aggressive rawness right up front.
I'm not picking up too much that feels heavily nutty, at least solo at lower percentages. That rawer note is making it hard to really dig in there and taste much at higher precentages.
It's a bit hard to put this into context of other hazelnut flavors. FW is creamier and warmer. FA Hazel Grove is also super potent and has a nice snap to it, but leans more toward the raw side of things. This is probably more aggressively raw than the FA version, but it doesn't really have a lot of that nutty body at usuable percentages.
Off-flavors: Not really a mellow bakery hazelnut. At higher percentages, this starts to pick up a whole lot of weirdness. That green note starts to pick up a chemical, almost gasoline taste to it.
Throat Hit: Nah, not really. Fairly smooth.
Percentage testing: This works far better at .25% than any of the tested percentages. I'm not getting some of pyrazine-type nuttiness I'd expect, but there's a mild raw hazelnut flavor. Not a lot in warmth or "roasted" flavor, but it's a solid raw hazelnut top note.
At 1%, this feels way too intense. Still not nutty or roasted, and that that rawer, green flavor is picking up a hard chemical edge. That light bit of bitterness has gone full on to smelling gasoline. I really wouldn't try to make this work up here.
At 3%, those off-notes are sort of terrifying. I'm still getting a hazelnut flavor in there somewhere, but those off notes are extremely aggressive.
Just based on these tests, I'd stay low with this, definitely under .5%. There's hazelnut here, but you may want to work up a dilution and start low.
Uses & Pairings: This one is going to be tough. I'd mostly just take advantage of how top heavy this feels, and use it as a low percentage additive to a heavier and warmer nut flavor. Just out of curiosity I threw about .2% of this on top of 3% FW Flavorwest, and it did help to make that flavor feel a bit more like a defined hazelnut.
You may be able to use a dilution type percentage of this on top of a heavier chocolate flavor to get some of that nutella top note.
Feels like a cheat to say tobacco, but this could work to bring in a green hazelnut note to an aromatic tobacco mix.