On October 22nd, via the Messenger app on the Real Flavors Facebook page, I had inquired whether the Black Label would still be available on their new website. They responded that “Yes we will be caring the black label again. They are just not on the website just yet as we are working on their production.”
Fast forward to today 12/31/2018 . I spoke with Joe (a representative from Real Flavors) inquiring about the Black Label line; as I still did not see them listed on their website. I asked for transparency to whether the Black Label flavors were still in production or if they were discontinued. He stated that “unfortunately they are discontinued flavors ”. They will not be available on the website or from any re-sellers.
Sadly I am not surprised. They’ve been struggling with their identity for the last year. From normal, to sc, to black label, and then to one drops. It was like throwing darts at a ping pong table. A lot didn’t make sense but was a lot of fun.
There are a few sc flavors I still enjoy to this day and wish they just would find the dart board.
Remember when RF did that sampler deal? It was, I beleive, 48 VG flavors; 12 were 2oz bottles the remaining flavors in 2 dram size bottles. I really mainly wanted Baja Soda but it was such a good deal I was all in. As it turned out the majority of them were wonderful. The problem was it took a really high percentage of flavering to make a juice. So when the SC’s came out I was all over that, many were good , a few not so much. The problem was some of them go bad pretty quickly, not having a very long shelf life. Walt was very helpful for me on an order durring the website change the time before the last one. I appreciate them taking a chance to find new and better aproaches to serving the vaping industry. I haven’t had the chance to try any of their Black Label yet so it’s to bad there gone, but I’ll order from them again.
I just spoke to Walt (he was out having a beer but still found the time to get back to me now that is good CS)
Black label flavors are not 100% discontinued. We oddly happen to have some still in stock. The Black Label French toast became our standard French Toast, as well as Blue Raz.
The other few are still around, and should make a showing soon. The goal was to remove the Black label cost and make them the same price as a standard flavor.
Hi Woftam. So the standard SC French Toast is now the BL French Toast? Also, I have the BL Blue Raspberry not the Blue Raz. Are those the same flavor?
Interesting because that was not what I was told. Joe said the SC flavors that are currently on the site and available for resale from online vendors would remain the same.
I saw your thread this morning and shot Walt an email that was the reply I got.
So yes what was the Black Label is now the Standard SC with those two flavours.
Thanks for shooting him an email. I’m very confused at this point from what Walt’s response is and what Joe’s response is. Hopefully Joe and Walt can confirm what is happening. I will call again after the New Year holiday to speak with him because I haven’t heard either announcement anywhere regarding this.
Also, is this the flavor I should purchase? I thought the BL Blue Raspberry and the SC Blue Raz were two different flavors. I don’t see “Blue Raspberry” on the site.
They used to be 2 separate flavours but what was the Black Label has now become the standard SC.
Yes, I believe that is correct. I will let you know since that was one of the BL flavours I was waiting for & I ordered a bottle this morning will just have to wait for it to arrive now.
Please let me know if you taste a difference between the SC and the original BL. From what Joe mentioned, there is a difference between the quality and production of the BL, which was why there was a cost difference between the two and why they were discontinued.
If the quality of the SC Blue Raspberry & French Toast are now the BL, then that’s def. a good thing. I will also purchase the regular SC versions of these two from BCF to compare to the BL I have.
@woftam@SessionDrummer Just a follow up. I did receive an email back today from customer service confirming what Woftman had stated. The whole conversation confirms that:
In the eyes of the sales team it is a discontinued product as we do not have it for sale right now.
The French Toast and Blue Raz that is on our website now, is the same as the Black Label flavors.
I sense something amiss. As, if that WAS the case, I would be claiming fraud (personally) if they were the same flavor, and one was intentionally sold at jacked up prices without cause.
Things like this are why I left the use of RF long ago. Too apt to change things (be it chemical composition, marketing, or otherwise) on a whim.
Just like the economy, it would be nice if flavor companies would get some stability in their product lines. As long as their lines are constantly changing, I’m not buying in.
It just sucks if you end up liking a flavor only to see it being discontinued and not being able to restock.
Or you could look at it that with the 2 flavours in question the Black Label was a much better product than the original SC and RF decided to discontinue the SC and replace it with the more expensive Black Label at a lower price to the consumer.
You already have.
Flavour companies are forever changing the flavourings be it suppliers of the raw products or the supplier of the finished flavour or they just outright change the whole flavour (Inawera, TFA for example). I would say the only reason we know about it is the fact that RF will tell you when asked as others will not.
Walt has said he wanted to reduce the price of the BL to make them more affordable in these two cases he may have done just that! To the point where they could be offered at the same price as the standard SC.
I don’t know why it was done nor do I know the details - Just spitballing.
RF and Inawera are notorious for changes…
Sure, other manufacturers may change a flavor or 2 every blue moon but RF and INW are on a whole different level
I can tell you now there are most likely changes to other flavourings from other flavour manufacturers that happen and are just not noticed. You are asking for stability in the flavour lines and I get that but the nature of the game with extracts and artificial flavours means there are going to be differences between batches as the supply of the raw materials change (particularly relevant to extracts).
But if the material components were that much more expensive, then you would think that they’d be losing money selling it at “regular SC” prices. Especially considering we were basically told (in not so many words) way back when, that the reason they were discontinuing the Extracts line, was either because they were cost prohibitive OR their supplier couldn’t meet demands. (Which in my mind, puts it back into the similar, and justifiable expense increase of the LE BL runs. Limited supply equals higher costs.)
At any rate, while I didn’t state things very politely earlier, what I was trying to get at was that something seems amiss (as ‘reported’).
And it seems that once again, the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing at RF. Nor can they deliver a single unified front to their consumers. Just my opinion, and YMMV!
I have the Blue Raz SC which I purchased before the roll out of the Black Label line. So I guess if I order it again I’ll have a different version of it. Oh well, it seems like every time I do a repeat order of an orange flavor from anyone it seem a little different to me.
Yea… The price and the confusing PG or VG thing will keep me away. I like they use distilled ingredients but other companies use them as ingredients also and the price is better, for basically seeing if you might like the flavor in the first place.
