Flavorah Lemon
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.13 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Lemon @ 1% and 1 drop per 10 ml (about .25%), 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days.
Flavor Description: Bright, tart lemon juice along with a lemonhead candy base at higher percentages. The tartness here is realistic to actual lemon juice. Not a ton of zest, although I start to pick up some "pledge" notes at 1.5%. Candy sweetness starts to really pick up at 1%. Seems to have some issues with the lemon flavor fading out a bit, but the tartness sticks around. Bit of harshness, but nothing too bad for the realistic parts of a lemon. I'd use this as a tart accent at lower percentages, and a candy lemon for quick steeping recipes at 1.5-2%.
Inhale is airy with a pretty heavy tartness bordering on sour. Tartness is pretty close to fresh lemon juice. Sweet, candy lemon base. Exhale is a bit denser, but still on the light side. Sweet Lemonhead candy base with higher, tart lemon up high. Not really a bitter zest, more like the spray of oil you get off the peel. Pretty sweet overall, sugary candy sweetness without any kind of artificial sweetener note. Moderately harsh overall. Lingering rawness from the tarter part of this and some sugar lips from the sweeter base.
Concentrate seperates quite a bit, so make double-plus sure you shake before use.
Off-flavors: Not really. Seems a lot like two seperate lemon flavors in on bottle. One is tart, realistic, and light the other is heavier sweet lemon candy. Neither is bad, but they don't quite seem to cohere into a single flavor.
Throat Hit: Moderate. I got a good amount of harshness the first time I picked this up but when I came back a couple hours later it wasn't all that bad. I'm guessing it'll end up on the harsh side for some people.
Uses & Pairings: This is going to be interesting in mixing. The tartness here is pretty prominent even at .25% and seems to stick around after a medium length steep. I could see using this more for a tartness in citrus applications, like adding a small percentage into a lemonade or adding some edge to a more candied lemon concentrate like FA Lemon Sicily or JF Juicy Lemon. I could also see it is a bright accent in fruit mix, adding some spark back to heavier, syrupy, or jammy berry flavors.
The fading issue limits higher percentage applications where you're going to get a lot more of that lemon candy. FWIW, this is actually pretty good without a steep, so maybe use it as a lemon candy flavor when you want a S&V or short steep. It's still tart and sweet after a steep, but that actual lemon flavor seems a bit flat.
Notes: Concentration testing, unfortunately it looks like this one fades out quite a bit. The tart part of this sticks around really well, but the lemon flavor was definitely less pronounced after a 2 week steep. At .25% I get mostly tartness, maybe a light hint of a fairly realistic zest. .5% is still tart, but still on the thin side. Kind of tastes like a lemon twist in water here. 1% is a little heaiver, and sweeter. Good tartness, and I'm getting a sweeter lemon candy flavor in the base. The sweet lemon here seems more prominent than the zest. At 1.5% you're pushing into lemonhead flavor, tart, bright, and candied. Sweetness keeps ramping up. At 2%, the candy base is still picking up steam. The tartness and higher lemon notes are getting a bit pledge-y though it's still pretty well balanced by the sweeter base. At 3%, I'm definitely getting a bit too much of that pledge flavor over that sweet candy base. Also getting a bit harsh. Because this may have some fading issues, I'd limit using this to relatively quick steeping mixes, either fruit mixes that don't take a huge steep or candy mixes where you're after some of that candy sweetness. For a tart accent, I'd use .75%-1.25%, and for a full lemonhead I'd use around 2%.
Second Opinions:
Again, not a whole lot.