Flavor West Ruby Relaxer
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 Ruby Relaxer@ %3, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 17 days.
Flavor Description: The flavorwest website call this a "tropical drink flavor" and has something that looks a bit like a cosmo garnished with a chunk of pineapple. A ruby relaxer is an actual drink, I guess, which has pineapple juice, cranberry juice, vodka, peach schnapps, and malibu. In reality, this kind of tastes like pink smarties and coconut vodka. So I'm guessing it's based on the drink. The fruit components of this are really indistinct and all sort of run together. A mix of candy cranberry, peach, and pineapple seems like a close enough approximation. I do get some clearer, creamy coconut out of this. The alcohol base here is a little offputting, but in an strangely authentic way. It's very cheap vodka-ish... bit harsh, rough, and has some actual alcohol bite to it.
Inhale is fairly sharp without being floral. Some generic juicy fruit type of sweetness and a fairly dense body. Exhale has some really candied pineapple up front with a bit of an artificial banana backing up it up. Pretty mellow cranberry top notes first, then a creamier coconut candy. Rough boozy base, with some actual alcohol heat and bite underneath. A touch astringent and seems to leave your mouth a bit raw. Flavorwest's website lists triacetin as an ingredient, and you can feel that whipped cream kind of gelatin-esque stickiness to mouthfeel. Lingering boozy coconut note. I don't taste much peach here, but you can definitely smell it afterwards, which is a bit weird.
Off Flavors: Strong booze bite and astringency. I'm seeing it as more of a feature than a bug, but it's probably a lot stronger than it needs to be to sell this as a tropical cocktail.
Throat Hit: Light? It's not particularly harsh, but that hotter booze note gets a little weird on the throat.
Uses & Pairings: This isn't a good flavor, per se. The fruit notes border on terrible, and that booze note is pretty sharp for solo use.
I'm going to be using this a booze enhancer. That actual bite and heat does a better job of simulating an actual cocktail than anything else I've run into. The non-distinct fruitiness is going to be a problem, but should blend in fairly well with juicy, more authentic fruit flavors. This may be the missing link in making umbrella cocktails really pop. I'm thinking Mai Tais, Daquiris, Pina Colodas, and even margaritas if you have a strong enough lime base.
Notes: S&V Concentration testing, I get a full boozy heat starting at 1%. Light, chalky fruit mix, but primarily just that bite. 2% still has a bite, but you feel this gettig smoother and picking up some of that gelatin emulsification. 3% is getting fairly sharp, and the fruit here is getting a bit more separation, letting you pick up the coconut pretty clear. 4% is a bit more complex, as the bitterness from that boozy note is popping those deeper cranberry notes. 5% is fairly overwhelming, mostly just hot booze and messy, chalky fruit. I'd start with this at 2% and work up. Your usage is going to vary wildly based on how well that fruit note is blending and how boozy you want your mix.
So could that authentic alcohol note just be the Ethyl Alcohol in the base? I'm guessing that there is something more than that going on. Based on this list from abdada's juic.org, this is somewhere between 1-5% Ethyl Alcohol. FW Martini is 55-65%, and I didn't get nearly as much of a hot booze note off of that. Same thing with FW Ruby Red Grapefruit at 20-30% or FW Pink Champagne at 10-20%. The SDS from Flavorwest confirms that this is between 1-5% ethanol. (Side note, it looks like Flavorwest has all of their SDS sheets up now, which is pretty handy.)
Second Opinions:
Nothing that I can find.