Liquid Barn Pumpkin Pie
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 Pumpkin Pie, 8 and 15% @ 1g/ml, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 22 days.
Flavor Description:
While this has a bit more going on in the background, it's pretty heavy on the spice. It's more from the "pumpkin spice" family than a full on pumpkin pie. The spice mix is pretty standard pumpkin spice. It seems to lead with a relatively heavy bakery clove. There's a good deal of warmth from the clove and that's reinforced by something like a cinnamon or maybe even a ginger on the back end, but I'm picking it up more as a spice warmth than a super distinct flavor. I'd also say there is maybe a bit of nutmeg hiding in there somewhere, but pumpkin spice is kind of difficult to really pick apart. Overall, it definitely comes across as a pumpkin spice.
There's some actual pie hiding behind that bolder spice note. Feels like mostly a graham cracker kind of crust. I'm not sure if it's just the dryness of the spice up front, but it comes across as a dry graham cracker crust. I'm not picking up any butter or real richness to the crust and the spice is wreaking a bit of havoc with the texture. Lighter graham notes overall.
I think I pick up just a bit of creamy pumpkin on the tail end of this. It actually shows up more on the breath you take after vaping this. Really light cream or custard notes and something vague and more pumpkin-esque. It seems very light overall. This is much more about the spice and the crust. I think whatever pumpkin filling is mostly working to give the entire concentrate a bit more body and keeping those spices from going completely dry and thin. Sweetness level seems about right for a pumpkin pie.
Off-flavors: The spice here ends up tasting a bit rubbery like smelling fresh tires. There's something just a bit chemical to it. Seems to fade down a bit with a steep, but it's prominent enough to be noticeable after 3 weeks.
Throat Hit: Moderate, which is actual pretty good for something with this much pumpkin spice. There's a bit of body that mellows everything out from just straight spice notes.
Percentage testing: At 8%, this is still pretty spice forward. It's not completely overwhelming for a whole bunch of spices, but it's still mostly spice. I get a really light bakery in the background but pretty much no filling.
At 15% The spice doesn't seems all that much more intense. Maybe just a touch more bakery underneath it, but still fairly light. You can just barely get some pumpkin in the there, but the mouthfeel is a bit thicker.
Liquid barn suggests mixing with this all the way up at 15%. Just because that spice doesn't really scale in linear fashion, and there's a bit more body to it that's probably not a bad idea for solo flavor. If you were going to start accenting this, I'd move down to around 10%. This should be fairly flexible as an accent for a pumpkin spice, I'd start around 2-3% for that.
Uses & Pairings: It's not really a full pumpkin pie solo, but it's not bad as a solo flavor if you really need some pumpkin spice in your life.
If you wanted to fill out for a pie, you're looking at some pretty usual suspects for boosting the crust and trying to fill out the filling. TPA Pie Crust, INW Biscuit, or your crust of choice and then some INW Custard and maybe TPA Pumpkin for the filling? Or maybe just fill it out with some HS Pumpkin Pie if that's your thing.
As a pumpkin spice, you're looking at all the usual nonsense with creams, coffees, bakeries, and tobaccos.
Second Opinions:
Here's the ELR Page. User "BikerDude" writes: "@ 10% decent pumpkin flavor with a hint of pie crust on inhale, pumpkin spice on exhale. Unlike most bakery, this does not have any noticeable butter flavor." User "BillyWilly" had a... different experience: "11/8 This flavor has a horrible off note that isn't steeping out. Its like someone threw some grease and burnt tires into it. If it doesn't get any better this is gonna be a one star concentrate for me. 11/135 days of curing and both the 8% pumpkin pie (LB) mix and 11% pumpkin pie (LB) mix has done nothing but strengthen the burnt tire taste. Contacted liquid barn and they are supposed to be testing the batch (1719579) i expect them to tell me all is well, which it certainly is not. This is the worst pumpkin/pumpkin pie concentrate I've used."