Solub Arome Brazilian Blood Orange
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.15 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Solubarome Brazilian Blood Orange @ 3%, 7% 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 7 days.
Flavor Description: Chewing on tangerine peels. Tart, slightly bitter and extremely zest forward. Sweeter and brighter than something like a navel orange. The opposite direction from a more subtle, earthier blood orange. Very little orange flesh and nothing approaching an orange juice. Really harsh freshly mixed, and seems to have faded out noticeably over a week. I'd use this at a relatively low percentage as a orange zest note, closer to 2-3% with the idea that it's going to take a week to calm down and blend into a mix.
Inhale is all zest. It's a bit thinner and sweeter than navel orange zest. Definitely closer to a mandarin or tangerine, but still realistic to zest. Top heavy flavor, without a thicker, sweeter base to it. Exhale is again mostly zest, almost entirely top notes. Light, realistic bitter citrus zest notes on top of all that tangerine zest. Just a tiny bit of a sweeter citrus base but it's too airy and dry to really read as the fruit of the orange. Lingering sharp tangerine zest. Actually feels like you've ate a chunk of tangerine peel with the rawness and citrus oil taste.
Off-flavors: Doesn't taste anything like a blood orange. I still don't have a ton of experience with raw blood oranges, but I expect a sweeter, darker, earthy orange flavor and instead i'm getting bright, lightly sweet tangerine. Also almost no fruit body to this.
Throat Hit: Freshly mixed, very harsh. Calms down a bit with a steep, but I'm not getting any deeper juicier flavor taking the place of that harsh zest. It just vanishes a bit.
Uses & Pairings: This is mostly just zest, so I'd probably only use this where I'm looking for a bright orange zest note. That pretty much limits it to more realistic fruit mixes or maybe beverage applications for something like an orange twist. I don't think using this will get to a blood orange, but you maybe able to fill out with a sweeter, fuller orange like FA Royal Orange, FA Blood Orange, or FA Mandarin.
Notes: This is offically my first Solubarome concentrate, so I'm a bit unsure on concentration. Chef's is recommending something nuts like 13-15% and that pretty clearly seems like overkill. The ELR page doesn't have any real information on it, but it does suggest 4% mixed and 5% solo, and that seems closer to the truth. Starting at .25%, it seems really thin. It's a noticeable tangerine zest, but it's just a thin hint. 1% still doesn't seem to really come together. Largely similar to .25%. Maybe a bit more intense, but still a bit thin. Starts to cohere and gain a little bit of body at 2%, but judging by the testers this will fade out a bit. Steeped at 3%, this tastes a lot like fresh mixed at 2%. 4% doesn't really seem to add much to the equation, same with 5%. 6% is unpleasantly harsh, at least fresh. 7% fresh is crazy harsh, and steeped it isn't that much better. I'm still not getting much body underneath. Pretty much just overwhelming tangerine zest. Just because chef's said to try it, I went up to 13% and nope. Doesn't really have any more dimension or sweetness than about 5%. Just more zest, and stil harsh. I think you get enough zest from this at 3%, and I don't much benefit going above that.
On the bright side, this stuff was crazy cheap from chef's. Based on the current exchange rate, It's like $2.55 for 30ml. Chef's has some wonky (in a good way) pricing, but even looking directly at the Solubarome site, they are asking $4.40 for 30ml directly from the manufacturer, so the whole $2.55 from a rebottler isn't that weird.
Second Opinions:
Not much.
H/T to /u/ID10-T/ for the suggestion.