Liquid Barn Greek Yogurt
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 Greek Yogurt, 5 and 10% @ 1g/ml, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 37 days.
Flavor Description: Sweet and chalky with a bit of yogurt somewhere in the background.
The base of this flavor is sort of a chalky cream? There's some slightly fluffy whipped cream type mouthfeel to it. I'm not picking up anything in the way of non-yogurt dairy notes. I'm mostly getting a pretty heavy chalky sweetness with a surprisingly neutral flavor up front. It's almost like a boosted, chalky version of VG sweetness. Liquid barn calls out a "toasted vanilla", and maybe get a bit of a vanilla ice cream type of vanilla in the top notes. It tastes almost a bit malty, but it's pretty subtle overall.
There also doesn't feel like there is much I'd associate with a normal "yogurt" flavor here. On the backend of the flavor I do get some of that funkier yogurt tang, but it's pretty light. Nothing too overtly butryic or cheesy, just more of a slight tartness and some pretty standard almost spoiled dairy. This feels about as aggressive as something like a go-gurt or kid's yogurt, without any of the real heavy sour dairy notes from more intense yogurt concentrates. It actually seems to take a couple drags to really get that yogurt to come out, it's pretty well hidden in there.
Seems pretty sweet overall. Mouthfeel is interesting, you've got some drier chalky notes and something feels a bit watery at the front of the flavor where you've got texture but not a lot of actual flavor. No really heavy, sugar lips kind of sucralose sweetness though.
Just on a purely subjective note, I've never really "got" yogurt concentrates. Hot yogurt and all that. So in comparing this to other available yogurts it's kind of a good news / bad news situation. The good news is that it's the least offensive yogurt flavor I've tried in terms of that hot cheesy yogurt thing. The bad news is that it's definitely the least yogurt-ish out of at least CAP Creamy Yogurt, FLV Greek Yogurt, and the new FA Yogurt. All of those other concentrates are identifiably yogurt, which this kind of struggles with. They are all quiet a bit more butyric than this, but they also handle the creamy, richer parts of yogurt a bit better (granted FA Yogurt needs about 3 months to do it.)
Off-flavors: Pretty chalky overall, and the flavor feels a bit thin. Not much yogurt.
Throat Hit: Light to moderate. That chalkiness gets a bit dry and harsh.
Percentage testing: At 5% this is lightly tart, chalky and sweet. I'm not getting much yogurt at all, and I'm also not picking up any vanilla here.
At 10% this is maybe a bit more chalky, slightly sweeter, and just a bit more tart. The yogurt is starting to come out more on the backend, but it's still pretty light. Vanilla is starting to show up.
Liquid barn suggests mixing with this at 10%. Seems to need that kind of higher percentage to get much yogurt out of this. Seems like a solid enough jumping off point. Doesn't seem to be a bold enough flavor to really work as a lighter accent.
Uses & Pairings: I'm not sure there are any really clear cut situations where this is going to be the best yogurt option available. It isn't bold enough to really work as an aggressive kind of yogurt, and it isn't creamy enough to work as a mellow yogurt background, although it could work that way with a different cream in the mix.
If you are using this, maybe throw some fruit and some more cream at it? You could also mix it with some ice cream and a bit of cooling for a frozen yogurt mix. The lack of heavy butryic notes should work relatively well with cooling.
Second Opinions:
Here's the ELR Page. User "JoJo" writes: "5% (SnV - Chalky. Not as good as Flavorah. 10 days - still seems chalky. 2 weeks - still chalk but sweet; could possibly offset the chalk with something fruity. 3 weeks - still chalky, sweet, and a bit tart. 5 weeks - chalk finally went away but I still prefer Flavorah.)"