Inawera Dry Cocktail

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

Testing: INW Dry Cocktail, 1 and 2.5%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 8 days.

Flavor Description: The label for this has a bowl of fruit on it so of course it's some sort of weird spicy tobacco blend. Never change, Inawera. Inawera describes it as: "A mystery flavour. Our former testers didn’t have a dillema describing their opinions. For ones DRY COCKTAIL it’s a sweet, fruity tobacco. For others is a „tobacco candy” or „tobacco spiced with gingerbread.” And you what will you notice in it?" in a forum post. The flavor is a bit hard to describe, but I'm getting something that tastes a lot more like a really heavy anise / black licorice with a very light tobacco and a boozy fruit finish. That black licorice tobacco note reminds me quite a bit of INW Kent, although it's substantially less tobacco forward and much less sticky and rich. There does also seem to be a bit of something spicier like ginger in there but the anise-y notes are pretty dominant. There's some very light breadiness that ends up working a lot like the starchy base of black licorice. The fruitiness seems really generic and overripe, closest thing I can think of would be a very light apple or pear kind of note but with the licorice and caramel here that can come off as kind of a overripe booziness. Almost comes across as kind of pear brandy for me on some drags, but then kind of falls apart into black licorice and fruit on others. A bit airy and dry overall, but still fairly sweet. I have no clue what you'd want to do it with this besides maybe embrace the weirdness and add a clearer tobacco or an oaky bourbon note. As an accent flavor it'll probably work more like black licorice than anything else. I'd use this around 1.5% for a primary note or a solo flavor.

Inhale is sweet and sharp. Some caramel sweetness but the top notes are truly odd with a licorice boozy sharp fruity vibe to it. The fruit note tastes more like an apple or pear I guess, and my palette keeps going back and forth on how strong those boozy top notes are. Thinner inhale and kind of airy. Exhale has maybe a very light tobacco, but there's a sweeter anise and ginger note that just tastes a lot more like black licorice to me. Fruitiness comes through more on the exhale. Some of that caramel from the inhale randomly shows back up and it goes boozy towards the tail end. Almost a cognac or pear brandy type of note to it. Sweet, but not really too sticky. Boozy notes have a slightly unpleasant sharpness to them. That booziness really comes and goes for me, and skews more towards black licorice a good portion of the time.

Off-flavors: Who the hell knows? Nothing here tastes either chemical or offensive but I have no idea what this profile is supposed to be. If it's indeed a tobacco, I feel like the tobacco here is really light.

Throat Hit: Moderate? It's a bit dry and that fruity / boozy note seems fairly sharp and acidic.

Uses & Pairings: This already has light tobacco, heavy spice, light bakery notes, boozy brandy, and a fruity finish. Most things you're going to do it are going to involve boosting one of those notes. My personal pick would be the tobacco part of this. I do like the hint of tobacco in here, and maybe a leafy tobacco would help fill out the concentrate a bit. I'd stay away with anything to nutty or dry, but I want to say something like FLV Cured Tobacco and play the woodier notes off the licorice here. I also think the booziness in here would lend itself to an extra shot of something like FA Oakwood or FLV Bourbon.

This has too much anise/licorice to really crank up the bakery, and it's about as fruity as I'd want it to be.

Notes: Concentration testing, this doesn't have much definition at .25 and .5%. Light licorice and fruit more than anything else. At 1% I'm getting some booziness to the fruit, and a heavier caramel sweetness. At 1.5% it's picking up a bit of black licorice as that caramel gets stronger and the spices here solidify a bit. At 2% I feel like I'm losing some of the booziness and this feels like a black licorice forward tobacco with a fruity caramel sweetness. At 3% this is starting to feel a bit heavy and sticky, and what little booziness I'm getting feels like a sharp, overripe off note. I'd probably stay around 1.5% assuming the boozy part of this what you're after.

Second Opinions: Not a ton.

Here's the inawera forum page thing with the testing notes. Apparently the development title of this was "Dry Tobacco" which makes at least slightly more sense than "Dry Cocktail." User "dara" describes this as: "Subtle, strong tobacco flavour with herbal-gingerbreads after taste, a volatile alcoholic taste in the background." Some testers are getting a clearer tobacco than I am, user "redwitch" writes: "Quite interesting tobacco flavour. Definitely the taste of tobacco is recognizable with something fruity-alcoholic after taste." User "pokoik" writes: "Certainly it’s a tobacco liquid. Touches of pipeish absolute are recognizable from the lowest concentration. However, the main ingredient it’s a dessert-fruity after taste. There’s a lot of sweetness, maybe even too much. However, the balance is kept and the ready liquid is vapable."

DIY_eJuice Flavor Reviews

Thanks to ID10-T for suggesting this for review?