Flavor West Hard Candy
ConcreteRiver
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 Hard Candy @ 1% and 3%, Others noted. 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 35 days.
Flavor Description: Tasting this solo, I get mostly hairspray with a sticky mouth feel. If you want weirdly specific, it tastes like manual pump hair spray smells, as opposed to the stuff in pressurized cans. A bit of sweetness here, but definitely an additive as opposed to a distinct flavor. At least solo, this is pretty overwhelming at 3%. Gets a bit harsh and that hairspray taste is really aggressive. More subtle at 1%, with most of the same sticky kind of mouthfeel. That mouthfeel is a bit hard to describe, but it likes the midway point between gelatin and normal sugar lips.
Off Flavors: Yeah, the chemical hair spray thing. The entire thing is an off-flavor to deal with to get to the mouthfeel.
Throat Hit: At 1%, not a ton. Gets moderately harsh at 3%.
Additive Tests: I've used this an a couple of test mixes at varying percentages to feel out it's use as an additive.
2% DIY FS Holy Vanilla, 1% FW Hard Candy: The surprise hit. Mutes some of the maltier, sour notes I get from Holy Vanilla and really rounds out and thickens the mouthfeel. Reads a bit like a creamsaver, which is a good thing. I don't get any of the hairspray taste from the hard candy at this percentage. Worth exploring creamier concentrates a bit more with this at 1%.
3% FW Root Beer, 2% FW Hard Candy: It was hoping for root beer barrels, I'm still not sure exactly what I actually ended up. This is odd. The spicier parts of the Root Beer have been kind of hollowed out, and 2% of the Hard Candy is enough to make it a bit weird and chemical. The sweetness of the root beer and the sweetness of the hard candy also seem to working against each other and getting really muddy. Maybe a bit too much mouthfeel and a bit too sticky.
4% OSDIY Blue Raspberry Slush, 3% FW Hard Candy: Definitely too high on the Hard Candy. Clear hairspray taste. Again, the sweetness in the blue raspberry and the hard candy are kind of fighting each other and muddying everything up substantially. Hard Candy taking down some of the brightness of the blue raspberry. Stickyness is a bit off-putting here. I was thinking jolly rancher, but this is kind of a mess.
Notes: So based on the additive testing, I'd keep the use of Hard Candy relatively low at about 1% or under. Based on the tests, I'd pair this with non-candy flavors, trying to make those more candy-like rather than starting with really sweet candy flavors and pushing those even further towards candy. Hard Candy seems to do a good job of toning down floral and sharp notes, so maybe through something relatively floral like peach, pear, raspberry, or apple at this. Also surprisingly okay with creamier concentrates.
Second Opinions: