Liquid Barn Pineapple
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 @.17 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Liquid Barn Pineapple, 4 and 8% @ 1g/ml, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 34 days.
Flavor Description: A pretty middle of the road pineapple. Nothing offensive steeped, but not a whole lot that really stands out.
The pineapple here feels pretty flat to me. It straddles the line a bit between something realistic and a sweeter candy pineapple. On the realistic side, it has a bit of acidity to it, but it's doesn't have much of a juicy body. It has kind of a canned pineapple taste going on but without the real juiciness of CAP Golden Pineapple. On the more candied side, there's some sweetness and waxiness to it but the flavor itself feels pretty muted and thin. Pineapple is generally supposed to be pretty vibrant, but this is pretty tame.
I'm not getting much texture out of this. Mostly a slightly acidic hit up front than a flat, thin pineapple. I do notice a bit of waxiness in here, but it's not completely overwhelming.
This has had a fairly long steep for a fruit. Tasting this a S&V there's definitely a more intense flavor, but it has a pretty heavy plastic type off-note to it. It's substantially brighter, but that off-note is a little too prominent to be enjoyable. I'm not sure there's a steep time that will make this work substantially better.
Off-flavors: Unsteeped, some heavier plastic notes but those die way down on a steep. Steeped, this feels a bit waxy and flat.
Throat Hit: Light to moderate. Some harsher acidity, but not bad for a pineapple.
Percentage testing: This feels pretty vague at 4%. Some acidity right at the front like pineapple, but not much actual pineapple flavor.
At 8% I'm getting a bit more acidity at the front, but this is still pretty undersaturated. Pineapple is coming through a little bit more clearly but it's still not really vibrant.
Liquid Barn suggests mixing at 8% with. Just based on these tests, that doesn't seem like a bad place to start.
Uses & Pairings: I'm not sure there are too many applications where another readily available pineapple won't work a bit better. If you want canned pineapple, try CAP. If you want realistic, try INW, and if you want tarter for a candy base, try TPA. All of those are more vibrant, more potent, and a bit more interesting.
If you do pick this up, I think it's more a background note for tropical or beverage type mixes. It doesn't really have the flavor saturation to stand in front of mix, but it could add some tart dimension to other fruits or a sort of fruity body to beverages.
Second Opinions:
Here's the ELR Page. User "jojo" writes: "8% (SnV - Tastes like a pineapple, but definitely has a bit of the chemical note I’ve gotten in some of the other LB fruits. 1 week - same. Definitely a pineapple. 2 weeks - chem note seems to have dissipated some. Otherwise, same. 3 weeks - same. Pineapple flavor, not bad not great. 4 weeks - still kinda meh.)" And that's about it.