Flavour Monks Vero Gin
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: FM Vero Gin @ %3, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 15 days.
Flavor Description: Supposed to be gin and raspberry. I'm not getting that, like at all. I can definitely taste the gin in here, but the fruit note is almost creamy without any kind of berry juiciness. It's like a banana-gin smoothie. It's not bad, I guess. Just weird.
Inhale has high juniper top notes, with a pretty distinct banana sweetness. Exhale starts off with the same juniper top notes, with that green banana coming out of the back end of the exhale. Overall moderately dense and with a really natural and solid level of sweetness. Kind of mess on the tail end, as the greener notes from the gin blend with that underripe banana and get really swampy, for lack of better word. Seems to get really weird as your wicks dry out a bit. What I don't get anywhere in here is raspberry. Maybe a hint of brightness, but it honestly has that flat kind of CAP Golden Pineapple note.
Off-flavors: Dude, this tastes a lot like bananas. It's the weirdest thing, actually a whole lot like a greener version of FA Banana or like /u/Philosaphucker/ 's Detox with a lot more cactus.
**Throat Hit:**Nah.
Uses & Pairings: I'm a little stumped with this one. It's a bit weird to run as a solo flavor. The gin isn't heavy enough to mix using that as a primary note. And that banana flavor is super green and gets downright vegetal. I suppose you could add some citrus or something to brighten the entire thing up with maybe some mango and coconut for a more tiny umbrella type of gin cocktail, but underripe bananas and gin just don't strike me as an awesome thing to try to find a complement for.
Notes:
S&V concentration testing, at 1% i get a lot of banana and almost a berry kind of brightness but no real gin. 2% almost tastes like ripe mango mixed with marshmallow, as it's kind of sweet and creamy with just touch of brightness and the gin manages to come across as just a little bit of a juniper top note that mimics a mango peel. 3% seems to be where the juniper really kicks in and that banana gets pretty underipe. Juniper keeps scaling up from there and it's pretty unpleasant over 3%. Seems to be a common thing with the FM Gin line, the juniper and gin specific notes just take off over 3%. I'd mix with this at 2% as a component in an umbrella drink type mix or maybe 3% if you're adding another heavy fruit in to try to salvage the concentrate.
I don't know, this is super weird and I can't really think of a damn thing I want to do with this. Thought originally this may have been a mixed up bottling with "Gin in Paris" because that's supposed to have a banana component but it's not. Gin in Paris is definitely different. I'm mystified here, and I'd probably skip this one.
Second Opinions:
The flavourmonks website has a couple of 5-star reviews:
Google-translated from dutch:
"This is one of the most unique flavors I have ever tasted, once you open the bottle you just think to open a bottle of gin. After 9 days steepen this is a nice change compared to the sweet taste that I normally vapor. The gin is still very prevalent, so the raspberry is very slightly around the corner from me. For the 'drank'dampers this is a wonderful mix!"
and
"my favorite, gin with a subtle touch of raspberry, I vapor for 3 years and in the meantime this is the best I've ever evaporated"
Both of these reviews are saying that raspberry is subtle, so maybe it's just too subtle or there is something being used that I'm not picking up.
Didn't find a whole lot else out there.