Flavor West Grape Soda

Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.16 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.

Testing: FW Grape Soda, 3 and 6%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 5 days.

Flavor Description: Right from the jump, this has plenty of very vocal defenders that are willing to rewick a whole lot to enjoy this. Check out the second opinions.

Holy sucralose. There's an artificial grape flavor in here. Seems a lot closer to a powdery kool-aid rather than a effervescent but still sweet grape soda. The big difference between those two is probably mouthfeel, and this is dry. Beyond the dry mouthfeel, the candy grape here has a bit of acetone grassiness. It's a pretty full artificial grape flavor, but that sucralose is a bit much. This feels like it goes well beyond the point of a tasteful accent. This tastes like sucralose with grape flavor, as opposed to the other way around. Flavorwest's SDS sheets are a bit hit and miss, but the SDS for Grape Soda lists sucralose at 30-40% by weight. Seems absolutely insane... but there's an issue with that SDS. Given the numbers they've listed for everything else, their numbers don't add up to 100%. They add up to 122-149% unless I I'm totally misreading what is actually going on there. Judging by taste and coil gunk this has a ton of sucralose in there. If you do want to rewick constantly and need a bright candy grape, the balancing on this is tricky. I get way too much sucralose before the flavor fills in. It's going to gunk at any percentage, but you'll probably get better results staying under 3% and using it as a grape sweetener for another less sucralose-laden grape.

The vaping experience on this varies wildly based on how much you vape. On fresh-ish wicks, the inhale is dry but vivid artificial grape flavor. Not really a harsh dryness, but it feels fairly well powdered. Like inhaling purple koolaid drink packets. Exhale has that same dry, sweet, grape up front. Manages to avoid going full dimetapp, but it's lacking any sparkling or acidic character you'd get with grape soda. Lighter acetone top note. Sucralose base, to the point that you're getting some artificial sweetener bitterness and chemical taste. But that's all on fresh wicks. This gunks incredibly quickly, and by 3ml the flavor starts getting flat and muted. Sweetener is slightly less taboo in DIY lately, but oversweetening has some really noticeable effects on how flavor works as everything just gunks all to hell.

Off-flavors: Grape note isn't as bright and acidic as grape soda. Incredibly dominant sucralose note, which drys out the vape substantially and leads to muting and flat dull flavor.

Throat Hit: Light from the acetoneish grassyness in the top notes, but then the sucralose kicks in and smooths everything out.

Uses & Pairings: I would really just use this as grape flavored sucralose. It's a profile specific sweetener for other grapes, berries, and fruit mixes.

Grapes and creams or bakeries aren't really much of a category, but it'd probably work as a sweetener in there as well.

Maybe keep it for the days you want to turn your brain off and don't mind rewicking. There is no way I would want this near a tank where I was buying prebuilt coils.

Notes: Concentration testing with this was weird. At 1%, there isn't much grape flavor here, more of a straight sucralose note with some light, dry artificial grape. At 3% you get a bit more grape, although I'd still argue it's pretty dominated by the sweetener. Grape underneath the sweetener feels a bit grassy and thin. At 6%, the grape has filled in quite a bit, but it's starting to taste incredibly dry. I can also only get a couple drips in at this percentage before I want to rewick. At 10% the sucralose has a bitter chemical edge. I don't know, I'd probably be closer to 7% with this as a primary note, but this will work as an sweetener at any percentage you want to try.

Second Opinions:

People dig this stuff, apparently.

Here are the reviews on BCF. All positive, most note the coil gunking. User "Chris" says: "Tastes spot on like grape koolaid. Great as a single flavor vape. I also use t to make grape bubblegum. This is a sweet flavor so be prepared to change coils more often." User "Kate Herring" is effusive: "This flavor is everything I hoped that it would be. A tangy grape flavor that mixes perfectly with bubblegum! I used it at 10% which was perfect in my recipe. It could probably be cut back some with equally delicious results." "Devin Cook" is just a bit more measured: "It is very tasty but because of all the sugars it burns wicking material and gunks coils fast unless used as a mixer at low percentages. Ive found about 2.5% as mixer works great to sweeten. Or 5% for stand alone any higher and youll be changing cotton or coils very constantly. Dont get me wrong it is a great flavor though."

Why not quote ID10-T. "FW Grape Soda. So much sucralose, it's insane. Major coil gunker and tastes like diet grape soda. Probably pretty yummy if you're into that sort of thing but it actually gives me a headache. "

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