Flavor West Cherry Balsam Tobacco
Foment_life
FW Cherry Balsam Tobacco
Tested at:
4% Single Flavor, approx 75% VG
Tested with:
Cthuhlu Mjolnir
single coil
3mm ID 6 wraps
2x26/36g fused clapton SS316l
55watts
Initial Impression:
This smells… weirdly inoffensive. It definitely smells like a candy cherry, and the herb/tobacco notes behind it make it appear vaguely medicinal on the nose. The flavor on the initial vape is a bit more spice or herb heavy than the nose of it. Almost like there’s a clove note behind everything else. I actually rather like this in an odd sort of way. It isn’t particularly good as a stand alone cherry, and I’m not really getting a particularly present tobacco flavor.
After a week:
The clove notes are kind of… gone. The inherent bit of tongue numbing sensation that’s associated with clove does continue to exist here. That makes it functionally unusable as a solo cherry, but does remain a candidate for use in a more robust recipe. Sadly, despite sitting on my desk for a week, no tobacco notes have really come to the fore here on their own, which leaves this at the very least mis-named. There is a bit of body here, feeling almost syrupy.
Off notes:
I don’t know that clove could really be considered an off note for balsam, but it was unexpected in my view. The cherry is not truly authentic, but more like an unsweetened (or at most very lightly sweetened) candy syrup.
Suggested pairings:
I plan to lean into this to sort of blend the strangest aspect of cherry cheyenne cigars with what might be the most appealing aspect of Djarum’s clove cigarettes for something I could use as a change of pace type recipe. Past that it is sort of herbal and sort of fruity, so it could be useful in an abstract pastry or somewhat “off the rails” mix of fruits and herbal or floral flavors. I can’t imagine this being used as a true focal point in a recipe, but it could be the square peg that can be shaved down to fit through a round hole under the right context, with the caveat that you’ll very likely be working against it as much as you’re working with it.