Flavorah Pucker
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 @.16 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Pucker, 1% solo, others noted, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 7 days.
Flavor Description: Tart tobacco additive with it's own sweet tobacco note behind it.
Tasting the solo, it has a moderate and interesting tartness to it right up front. I wouldn't say it crosses the line into sour, but it does have a bit of an almost tannic tartness that I associate with green apples or even something like an underripe bartlett pear. The more I vape this, the less this reminds me of a citrus tartness, although I could see maybe something like a lemon juice bright tart note if somebody wanted to argue it.
The solo tobacco here probably isn't the point but it's definitely there. It's a bit smoky, with some sweet wet hay. The tobacco note reminds of overdoing some of my tests with FA Ozone, as it has that prominent hay and the sweetness is very similar to the not quite a caramel but still kind of sticky thing going on there. I wouldn't really call it ashy, but it does have a slightly dirty note that builds up a bit in the back of the throat.
But, that's probably all besides the point. I also put some testers down with some of the Flavorah tobaccos. I figured I'd cover the spectrum with Arabian, Cavendish, Cured, and Burley.
That tartness carries over really clearly when mixed. Comparing the solo and the mixed samples, the tartness is basically at the same level. I'm not a tobacco expert by any means, but it feels like it's making the leafier parts of the tobacco feel a bit brighter but it isn't necessarily making them taste any more green or vegetal. Seems to be pushing the leathery and woody notes up a bit as well.
Mixed, I'm also picking up something that feels like a really light cooling through the entire vape. It's subtle, and doesn't push this toward a menthol or anything.
This is adding quite a bit of sweetness when mixed. It's not really a caramel, but it has some of that softer feel.
The smoky part of this is masked fairly well by the Cavendish and the Arabian, but I can definitely taste most of that sweet hay of that tobacco note in the burley and and a bit of it in the Cured. It doesn't seem to be playing extremely well with the nuttier or chocolate notes there. FLV Red Burley seemed like the biggest stretch in terms of application, and this sample seems to bear that out. Most of that tobacco note disappears behind the Arabian, and I mostly just pick up some additional sweetness in the Cavendish.
Off-flavors: It's an additive, so I'm not sure what it's supposed to taste like, but nothing about the name pucker makes you think it's about tobacco. So I guess watch for that. Nothing that tastes chemical or unpleasant though. Might be a bit overly sweet if that isn't what you're going for, and could push your tobaccos a bit cloying.
Throat Hit: Solo, it's a bit harsh, but you've got tartness and tobacco with a bit of smoke so it's probably to be expected. Mixed with Arabian, Cured, and Cavendish, I didn't really notice a huge increase in throat hit. It did add some throat hit to the Burley.
Percentage testing: I just mixed this based on some hunches trying it solo.
.25% FLV Pucker, 2% FLV Arabian Tobacco: Arabian is pretty aggressive, adding some pucker just increased that up front while giving it a bit more body to kind of soften the vape up. It's a pretty neat trick. .25% is probably enough for a tobacco that's already aggressive.
.5% FLV Pucker, 2% FLV Red Burley: Nope. Don't do this. The tartness clashes with the nuttier notes and makes the entire thing taste a bit like sour chocolate and wet grass. The actual tartness here isn't overwhelming, but the added sweetness is pretty intense.
.75% FLV Pucker, 2% FLV Cavendish: This shouldn't work as well as it does, but it helps to clean and brighten up that Cavendish. It tones down some of the funkier aromatic pipe tobacco notes and brightens up the leafier tobacco notes. I am getting some additional sweetness that I'm not wild about here, but this is still pretty cool.
1% FLV Pucker, 2% FLV Cured: 1% Pucker is seeming like a bit much here. That tartness is good, the bump to the leather and woody notes is also cool. The sweetness is overbearing though.
Based on this, I'd probably keep this under 1%. The tartness isn't really overwhelming at any of the percentages tested, but it does tend to sweeten up the tobaccos and that hay note from the underlying pucker tobacco gets too intense.
Uses & Pairings: I'd keep this well away from desert tobaccos. Makes sense, as those shouldn't be made much more tart. That tartness just didn't play well with the nuttier, milder burley and was pretty marginal with the cured. That would probably extend to all of those RY4 and bready tobacco types. They also probably don't have an aggressive enough tobacco note to stand up to the sweeter hay notes of the underlying pucker tobacco.
This actually worked fairly well with Cavendish, so this may have some use at moderate percentages with pipe tobaccos. It seems to sweeten and define the pipe tobacco while mitigating some of the weirder floralish notes.
It worked well with Arabian to fill it out, so it may work well as a sweet and tart base to fill out almost astringent, earthy tobaccos.
I think the intended use would have been something like cigarette tobaccos, trying to add some of the bite and tang of specific brands. Seems like you'd have to start with a dryer tobacco base to avoid getting oversweet though. The light bit of cooling here would work to bolster a menthol though, and some cooling would clean up a lot of sweetness if you wanted to do a newport or something similar.