Liquid Barn Cola Freeze
ConcreteRiver
Disclaimer: I didn't pay for these, they were sent to me by Liquid Barn. Shout out to Liquid Barn
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.14 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Liquid Barn Cola Freeze, 4 and 8%, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 21 days.
Flavor Description: Cola syrup, light on the freeze.
This tastes a whole lot more like a cola syrup than a your typical can of coke. The spice top notes are duller and I'm not getting much in way of spicy dark vanilla. If you put a gun to my head, this seems to have a bit more a citric bite up so I'd probably lean more pepsi type, but there isn't a whole lot of nuance to go off. The sharpness here seems fairly limited to the inhale, and the exhale is a lot flatter and sweeter. Nice flavor saturation of that heavier cola syrup though, even if it is a bit dull.
For something with freeze in the name, I really don't get a strong cooling note. This is much more sticky and warm than frosty. It seems like there may be a really really light cooling that shows up as the inhale builds and at the very tail end of the flavor, but it's extremely light and could just be the heaviness of that flavor tailing off a bit.
This feels a whole lot like cola syrup as well. There's a pretty intense sticky sweetness in here. That normal waxiness of the liquid barn flavors is doing a good job selling some of that HFCS filmy mouthfeel. This is sticky and heavy enough that I'm not really feeling the slush part of this or anything resembling carbonation.
Off-flavors: Not really. I feel like a broken record here but these are fairly "warm" flavors and they have a waxy mouthfeel. Both of those attributes work to sell the cola syrup thing. There's also no real cooling, so that's probably an off flavor for something called "Cola Freeze."
Throat Hit: Light. A bit citric and bright right at the front of the flavor, but pretty mellow after that.
Percentage testing: At 4% this pretty much just tastes like a thinner and less sweet version of the 8%. Doesn't so much feel like cola syrup as the melted cola ice.
At 8% this is quite a bit more syrupy. More saturated flavor and sweeter. Definitely feels like a more full flavor over all.
Liquid barn suggests 8% with this, and that's probably close to the mark for full flavor here. I don't think would add much using at a lower accent percentage.
FWIW, we've got another VG dominant flavor here with a specific gravity of 1.21 g/ml. I'm lazy and mix by weight, so my percentages are based on the more standard 1 g/ml measurement. So the suggested flavor by volume would more like 10% if you're using 1 g/ml.
Uses & Pairings: This should get along really well with FA Cola, which has pretty awesome cola top notes but struggles a bit on body. Combining the two should net you a very sweet, but still vibrant cola vape. This is mellow enough you could probably swap in some FW or FLV Root Beer for the top notes and use the cola freeze for a syrupy body.
This is also fairly syrupy and a bit of ws-23 would probably get you to an actual cola freeze.
Second Opinions:
This flavor was featured on the slush episode of Noted at around the 52 minute mark. Your hero and mine, CheebaSteeba covers it pretty succintly. Selected quotes include: "Mellow cola flavor" "A little bit of that syrupy quality" "no ice" "bump the cola flavor" "Slush base for a cola slushie" "Needs some help for the actual cola flavor." Easy enough, right?
Here's the ELR Page. User "jojo" writes: "8% (SnV - cola flavor, a little fizz, but also something a little weird and burned tasting. 1 week - better. Tastes kinda like a coke Icee. 2 weeks - Still getting a coke Icee, which is what I’m guessing this is supposed to be. 3 weeks - coke icee still, but also a bit of plastic perhaps. 4 weeks - same.)" User "ziggy" writes "Nice cola. I add koolada a bit. Not very strong." User "PrometheusDarko" (who I bet is super fun at parties) writes: "No taste on inhale, light cola taste on exhale."