Flavor West Big Stick

Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.17 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.

Testing: FW Big Stick, 2 and 4%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 4 days.

Flavor Description: No actual description of the flavor is up yet, but flavorwest went with a picture of a "Big Stick" popsicle so it's pretty safe to say it's supposed to be a cherry pineapple popsicle. I get a pretty mellow indistinct candy-ish fruit flavor. Lighter, sweet pineapple candy base. I'd go with the white gummy bear analogy, but it's actually a bit softer than that. The cherry in here is that same weird medicinal, plastic cherry taste that plagues cherry flavors. The cherry is mostly accenting the pineapple, but the top notes are all cherry off-flavors. Nothing realistic, which is probably a fit for the profile but it's also not quite as syrupy and bright as I'd like for a proudly artificial fruit flavor. No cooling that I can detect, so it doesn't really end up feeling like a popsicle flavor. Between that gnarly cherry and the lack of brightness and flavor saturation, kind of a tough sell for mixing. If you are going to end up using it, I'd go for maybe 5%. Those cherry off-notes are pretty offputting as you go higher.

Inhale is mostly warm candy pineapple, but a bit soft and indistinct. The pineapple tastes a bit muddy and flat. Almost has a hint of a candy banana to it. No real tartness that screams pineapple. You can maybe taste some of that cherry, but it's an accent more than a discrete component. That sweetness builds and the inhale picks up medicinal cherry notes. Exhale opens with that candy pineapple, and a bit of detectable cherry. Top notes build in the middle of the exhale, bringing in a solid but not completely overwhelming medicinal plastic edge to the entire thing. Pineapple flavor seems to soften up quite a bit and get unsatisfying as those cherry off-notes kind of take over. Vape is on the sweet side, but it's a muddy, dull sweetness instead of a bright, syrupy sweetness. Lingering cherry off-notes. Not particularly harsh, but those cherry top notes are a bit bitter and tough on the throat.

Off-flavors: Cherry off-notes. Medicinal and plastic. Stops short of full gasoline, but it's the familiar struggle with cherry flavors.

Throat Hit: Light? Not really harsh but unpleasant throatiness and a bit of bitterness from those cherry off-notes.

Uses & Pairings: If you can past the cherry off notes, I feel like this needs some cooling and some brightness to really pull off a popsicle. If you don't mind the extra citrus, this could be a job for my only friend INW Lime. But any kind of syrupy bright fruit would probably work.

Outside of accentuating the profile, not quite sure what to do with this. It may be a decent candidate for turning into a slush or whatever if you don't hate fake cherry flavors.

Notes: Concentration testing, this is all about how much of that artificial cherry you can take. At 2%, it's a lighter flavor overall. Feels really undersaturated but the cherry off-notes are fairly subtle. 4% is a bit sweeter, if not really brighter. Cherry off-notes are fairly noticeable but that candy pineapple is okay but muddy. 6% is prety high on those off-notes for me. 8% is getting robotussin-ish, as that fake cherry is getting too aggressive and the off notes are unpleasant.

Second Opinions:

Brand New!

Here is the product page. It is not useful. Worth noting FW doesn't have a SDS up for this yet, so no firm indication if there is anything weird like sugar syrup in here. I know FW Boom (their bomb pop flavor) has sugar syrup, and this could conceivably have some in there. If it does, it doesn't necessarily seem overwhelming or anything... but if you're super cautious about that kind of thing I'd wait until they publish the SDS.

DIY_eJuice Flavor Reviews

Bonus video first test for this, FW Sprinkles, and FW Star Candy