Flavor West Whiskey
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 Whiskey @ 3%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days
Flavor Description: Cheap whiskey, all the way. A bit weird and dirty, but manages to get across your favorite bottom shelf whiskey fairly well. Has a bunch of interesting side-effects based on your percentages. Can be used as a dry, spicy, volume at lower percentages. Good solid sweetness, medium density, interesting stuff.
Inhale is sharp and a bit odd, with some slightly cheesy instead of buttery oak in there. Medium density and a bit of unpleasant sweetness. Exhale is a lot better, with some higher spicy oak top notes and a warm, albiet cheap, bourbon kind of base. Relatively rich at 3%, with a pretty full density. Sweetness level is pretty dead on for cheap whiskey, definitely on the sweet side but not sickly or cloying. A deep odd kind of body to this, with a deep,subtle almost sour milk kind of flavor that shows up right on the tail end at higher percentages.
Off-flavors: There's a deep funk here that's not entirely cool. It's not quite buttery, but it has that same kind of heft to it. Almost tastes a bit rancid, but not in a butryic acid kind of way. I think that's the dog food thing that manson was referring to. It's subtle enough for me to chalk it up to the game here, but it may be an issue for some people.
Throat Hit: Nah, pretty smooth.
Uses & Pairings: As an actual cocktail vape, I think the primary use of FW Whiskey is to add a more blatant kind of whiskey vibe to a more subtle whiskey like TFA Kentucky Bourbon. It's won't be a subtle combination, but it'll warm, rich, and definitely taste like a whiskey.
The richness here would mix well with caramels and butterscotches, although it won't help with any kind of dryness issues. I've found that really rich creams and custards don't work super well, as the deeper funk kind of clashes with any kind of eggy notes from custards.
At low percentages, I like this in bakeries because the dryness and volume works to boost up a profile a bit without getting your layers soggy. The lighter spice notes end up drying out your bakeries a bit while helping to pop bakery spices. ALso has that warming character like TFA Kentucky Bourbon where it helps to warm up your overall vape.
Notes: I dig this specifically because it's a bit of a mess. It has a lot of really odd characteristics based on the percentage you're mixing at. S&V concentration testing, at .25%, this is light but noticable. Mostly a light oak and a a bit of sweetness. .5% is quite a bit sharper on the inhale. Still oaky, with a bit more of bourbon bite. Fairly dry, but a fairly decent bourbon flavor. 1% has a pretty solid punch, with that oak kicking up a bit and a bit of a burn on the back end. Sweetness level hasn't really changed much from .5%. At 1.5% is starting to pick up that aforementioned funk, getting fairly unpleasant on the back end. The vape is also drying out a bit. By 2% this is getting a bit dry and weird. Those off-flavors are definitely picking up quite a bit. 3% has a decent bite to sort of off-set the funk there, but still pretty heavy on the off-flavors. 4% is super warm, with that warming kind of covering up the weirder off flavors. Personally, I'd keep this low unless you really, really want a boozy punch to your juice. I'd start with .5% as an additive for bakeries, and maybe 1% as a whiskey backup for another boozy flavor. If you want a strong whiskey flavor to complement other sweet mixers, maybe start at 3% and work up but watch for those off-flavors.
So how does this compare to other whiskey concentrates available? Well... i have links. Here's my favorite, FLV Bourbon, which is great and oaky, but doesn't have a ton of body. Here's FA Whisky, which is like a sweeter scotch without much of that oak but with a pretty cool peat flavor. And here's wh1skey's review of TFA Kentucky Bourbon, which is useful but I agree with Wh1skey's initial assessment that it doesn't taste a whole lot like bourbon, opinions apparently differ though. We don't have a review up for INW Whiskey, but this tastes fairly close to that, although a lot less intense. I get a rich, kind of funky buttery note from that INW Whiskey that I don't like, and while it's present here, it's a lot further down in the mix and more subtle.
I'm obviously biased, but I like this stuff. It's definitely odd, and not great solo but I think it has some uses and definitely conveys a cheap whiskey better than TFA Kentucky Bourbon solo.
Second Opinions:
/u/notcharlesmanson/ thinks this comes across as dry dog food. I can completely see where he's coming from with that. It's got a good deal of an almost buttery, but not quite funk to it and a weird, messy, dry, spicy note in there that can be a bit kibble-y. There's also some mentions of cheap whiskey, and I'll 100% support that. This is not a sophisticated whiskey flavor. Bottom shelf all the way. This is DoD final judging round where my recipe had FW Whiskey in there, look at 40:20 for a good breakdown of some issues with this flavor.
Other than that, not a whole lot of information available.
There's a quick review by user "Lastlokean" on ECF:
"Pretty Bad by itself, makes an OK whiskey coke. It really doesn't have the 'captain spice' I'm looking for and reminds me more of a light rum. 6/10"