Liquid Barn Root Beer
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 Root Beer, 5 and 9% @ 1g/ml, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 40 days.
Flavor Description: A solid root beer, but a bit flat overall.
If you check the second opinions, someone calls out "root beer barrels" with this, and that seems like a pretty apt description. Overall it's not really sharp like a Barq's, creamy like an A&W, or spicy like a fancy craft-ish root beer. It's definitely root beer, but it's kind of undersaturated for such an intense profile. It's sort of warm and sweet without much bite. So, either a flat can of store brand root beer or the aforementioned barrels.
The actual spice mix here is pretty good for root beer. I get mostly wintergreen and a touch of vanilla. The wintergreen here is solid, and brings in a bit of cooling that feels like a fit for the profile. This doesn't have too much in the way of spicy licorice or anise-ish notes to it. Not particularly spicy, but what is here is identifiably root beer.
This is definitely sweet, but it's kind of a straight sugar kind of sweetness. It doesn't have a ton of molasses or caramel kind of darker sweetness. The vanilla here is also a little bit bright and not that darker vanilla extract kind of taste. The mouthfeel here is okay, at least in the steeped version. It doesn't quite feel dense, but there is just a bit of creamyness to the body. I'm not getting anything that's emulating a carbonation.
I think this suffers a bit from some strong competition. CAP Root Beer has a dark sweetness and is a bit fuller, and would probably work a bit better as the base for a sweet, sticky root beer. FW Root Beer has a really intense spiciness and does a great job on top notes. And FLV Root Beer is spot on, if also a bit top heavy, and does a really interesting foamy root beer very well. There's nothing major wrong here, but I'm not sure if there's a really compelling reason to use this as it's substantially less concentrated and doesn't quite do any aspect of root beer as well as some of the competition.
Off-flavors: Nah.
Throat Hit: Very light. Steeped I'm not getting much at all.
Percentage testing: At 5% there's relatively more root beer spice than body. You pick up some relatively heavy wintergreen, and some actual spicier notes but there isn't much body beyond some sweetness.
At 9% this has quite a bit more sweet body, and it has just a bit of creaminess. You lose some of the nuance of the spice note, and I mostly get wintergreen and light vanilla here.
This has been steeped for quite a while, so trying this S&V at 10% it's definitely a bit more vibrant. I'm getting a light throat hit but the spice notes are a lot more intense. Still sweet, but not too much creamy body.
Liquid Barn suggests mixing this at 9%, and just based on these tests that's probably in the ballpark. I think you could easily go a bit higher up to 12% for a solo flavor and I wouldn't really steep over 3 weeks. This is a bit flat to work well as an accent at a lower percentage, and it'll pretty much always taste like root beer so that limits those kinds of applications.
Uses & Pairings: There's nothing wrong with this per se, but it probably needs some help as a convincing single flavor root beer, mostly with fullness and texture. Using some LB Cola Freeze could help fill in the bottom end with a heavier caramel sweetness, and the spice top notes should still come through fairly well. You could also go the float route and fill out the body with an ice cream flavor.
If you wanted to play up the root beer barrel thing, some sucralose is going to get you most of the way there.
Second Opinions:
Here's the ELR Page. User "jojo" writes: "3% (2 days - sweet root beer and even tastes kinda fizzy. Delicious. 1 week - very tasty. I love this flavor. 2 weeks - still very good and tastes like rootbeer. Not quite as fizzy. 3 weeks - same. 4 weeks - same. Excellent flavor and will certainly use more in the future.)" User "Nullman" writes: "This is a great rootbeer flavor. I tried it first at 6%, shake and vape. It seemed a bit sweet at first, but rootbeer is pretty sweet. After filling my tank a 2nd I am really impressed for a single flavor juice! Nice wintergreen hit, but not menthol-like."