Flavor History and the Database (notes for users on how to select the proper listing) ;)

Just wanted to mention some of the things that have crossed my mind many many times over the last couple years, but have always seemed to escape making it to a post (usually from sheer exhaustion by the time I’m done with an update session).

You might also want to check out the newly created “Retired” Flavors list which is under ongoing updates. So check back every once in a while!

Some things worth being aware of:

  1. We do not yet have a way to “Retire” flavors that are outdated. It’s something that I’ve mentioned before, but REALLY would love to catch Lars when he has time to sit down and chat in depth.
    Given that fact, we try to maintain the old flavors (for both the fact that some users may still have them in their stash, as well as the historical purposes.)

  2. There are exceptions to every rule. The fluidity of the industry (primarily speaking of the OEM’s reformulating flavors, or updating their marketing without “notfication” [NOT that we’re due such, but it would be nice! lol]) makes it difficult at times to maintain the separation of what’s a new flavor vs a conversion (EG: from “New!” to a “standard” flavor, prime example, Cap Marshmallow made the original marshmallow [using various DAAP components], then came out with a New! Marshmallow [note: NOT a v2] which has recently been re-marketed [on their USA site] as just plain old “Marshmallow”. This should NOT be confused with their original Marshmallow. More examples to follow.)

  3. Some names just DO NOT have standarization (from a “global” standpoint). What needs to be understood here, and what I’d like to convey, is that, you should try not to get frustrated by the fact that one company uses Dragonfruit (one word), and another uses Dragon Fruit (two separate words). What I have tried to do when I run across this, it to reference the original OEM (manufacturer of the flavor) and see how they spelled it. I then try to make sure that I merge it into THEIR usage. From there, I merge whatever I run across (or whatever’s been submitted) to the properly listed format.

  4. “New!” DOES NOT always equate to a v2 flavor. It has sometimes been sold at the same time (not as a transition making it’s way through the retail chain, but actually sold by the OEM as two separate offerings). As mentioned above, they sometimes complicate matters, when they decide to convert a “New” flavor. It might end up being a v2, it might end up being converted to their “standard” seller/listing. They may continue to sell both. They may drop one altogether. There’s just two many ways/things that could happen. So we ALL get through it the best we can!!

The following are recent thoughts as a result of digging back into the database and merging (thanks to having temporary access to GOOD internet, on a PC!), and as such, are subject to updating (as new information emerges, or corrections are made, etc).


First Example: Blackberry (Cap)
This is a prime example of one that should be retired, as it’s no longer sold, and has been reformulated!
Blackberry (Cap)

It was replaced by: Blackberry, New (Cap)
(which has become the new “standard”, but should NOT be confused for the original formulation above)
Blackberry, NEW (Cap)

And then, along came a v2 variant.
v2 is still sold, alongside the above (with New being dropped)
Blackberry v2 (Cap)


Second Example: Cherry Cola (Cap)
This is the original formula, and one of the oldest flavor entries (and should be retired)
Cherry Cola (Cap)

Only the two that follow (below) are currently listed for sale on Capella’s website:

They show:
Cherry Cola Rf
which we list as:
Cherry Cola (Rdcd.Flshpnt) (Cap)
because a lot of folks have a hard time keying these in, and they end up being listed as Real Flavors, and we don’t want to reflect any disservice to either company!!

PLEASE NOTE:
(Rdcd.Flshpnt) should be used (after the flavor name, but before the brand name) for any flavorings that are being made to cater to air travel (international shipping by airplane) by companies such as TFA (The Flavor Apprentice and Capella being the two leading examples currently being seen)

Finally, we have the third entry in this flavor,
They show:
Cherry Cola Rf V2
which we list as:
Cherry Cola (Rdcd.Flshpnt) v2 (Cap)


Third Example (shows a unique exception to the rule):

Cup of Joe (Cap)
has become
Cup a Joe (Cap).

Incidentally, they also have Cup a Joe v2.

(I’m guessing that someone actually owns the rights to Cup of Joe :roll_eyes: , and that’s why the name changed. sigh)

Cup of Joe (Cap)
Cup of Joe (Cap)
This is another one that was quietly retired by Capella (and we need to mark as “Retired” at some point in the future when we hopefully have the ability! :wink: (a friendly wink and a nudge to Lars @daath lol
Whatever your creative heart decides my good man!)

It has been replaced by the following two offerings (though I’m betting many retail resellers haven’t made the change to their site yet, so watch your original bottle names people :wink: -Folks that buy such flavors rebottled are just “out of luck”, and should probably assume by default that their product is the NEWER Cup a Joe flavoring.

The following current listings should be used:
Cup a Joe (Cap)
and also
Cup a Joe v2 (Cap)

Please choose appropriately!
Cup OF Joe should soon be drained from the retail chain in most cases I’d imagine…
example

Thanks to those who were astute enough to see that previously! (It made my early merging much easier!)


Third Example:
Licorice (Cap)

Licorice, Liqorice, Liquorice is a troublesome thing, as it’s very geographical (even the “English” spellings change by region :wink: which is again, one of the reasons why I tend to try to defer to the manufacturer’s listing and spelling in most cases).

There were a variety of listings (prior to merge), but given that what Cap lists on both their USA and Euro site currently is spelled using the American spelling…that’s what I went with (subject to change in the future I’m betting).
example

The current two choices are:
Licorice (Cap)
and
Licorice (Euro Series) (Cap)
Please try not to enter additional (though geographically correct) listings!

Since it’s recently come to light that there may be differences between the two lines, I’m leaving both entries for the time being.

However it’s worth noting that there is inconsistency on Cap’s sites (both Euro and USA) at least with respect to images used (as seen below).

Capellaflavors.com (the USA site) clearly shows the Euro labeling on the flavor assumed to be geared towards USA tastes.
(the flavor on the far right)
'New'

Capellaflavours.com (the Euro site) clearly shows the Euro labeling, as expected (note the circular logo in the upper right, which is also seen on the “USA bottle”.)
'LICORICE%20I%20Capellaflavours'


Fourth Example:
Marshmallow (Cap)

This is an example of original, meets New!, meets “changed to the ‘standard offering’…”

The original is long since retired by Capella (thanks to the still unproven DAAP scare) and it’s listed as:
Marshmallow (Cap)
at least until it’s marked as “Retired”.

You are highly unlikely to have this flavor in your arsenal unless you’ve been mixing since 2016 or before.

It’s far more likely you’ll have the following:
Marshmallow, New (Cap)
which is already being sold as:
Marshmallow (Cap)
(at least on their website).

Now you see the problem (I hope)!
What’s being currently sold as Cap Marshmallow, ISN’T the same as the original, yet it would still fall under our standard naming convention, which throws yet another wrench into the works (doesn’t it @Woftam? lmao :wink: )

So at the moment, I’m considering a few options for such occasions.

The first (and foremost) that’s come to mind has been to add the year (or possibly season? though geography probably shoots that all to hell eh Aussies? -Christmas in Summer and all… lol :wink: ) to the name.
EG: Marshmallow (Cap) 2019

Actually…fuck it. I’m doing just that, right now until a better idea/suggestion/mandate comes down the pipe on how to handle it!!
I’ll probably merge the current “New” listing into the 2019 listing in the future…but will wait for awhile before that, just to see/just in case. Something better may crop up after all. :laughing:


While Cap’s examples above cover MANY OTHER flavor naming issues across many other brands…It’s time to move on.

The last thing I want to dive into before I wrap this up, is another “Lesson in Flavor History”

One On One Flavors was a brand unto itself (a smaller flavor house that was bought out), before Get Suckered bought it (or they merged. Whatever. I’m not as privy as some of the industry insiders we have lurking here! :wink: lol)

At any rate. As above, there are examples of flavors that are either no longer sold, or have been replaced by newer offerings, or renames of the same old flavors. In any case, Let’s dive in!

I have a variety of the original flavors (from the original OoO website) saved somewhere, but this is a great shining example of things that need to be preserved, and things that are being actively sold/used.

Overview of OoO Marshmallow:
OoO%20example

Note: I’m fairly sure that I’ve previiously merged the very first one (at the top) into Vanilla previously…and that what you see is a flavor that was readded *before Lars implemented a change to try and eliminate such things happening, but I’ve left it for the time being until I can verify that.

Flavors that I know predate GS ownership/consolidation…
Marshmallow (white fluffy v1) (ooo)
Marshmallow (white fluffy v2) (ooo)
Toasted Marshmallow (ooo)
Marshmallow Cereal (ooo)
Marshmallow Cereal (VG) (ooo)

I believe the recent addition to their Marshmallow list is:
Marshmallow (White Puffy v1) (ooo)

Again, I’m fairly certain that Marshmallow (vanilla) (ooo) predates the acquisition by GS, but the flavor number is a high one most likely because I had to create a newer flavor entry because I didn’t have the access I needed to manually change a single entry. (I have been using work-arounds in the interim to fix flavor naming conventions, but as a result, some of the older flavors have “newer numbers” [speaking strictly from a database POV] that what they otherwise would have.

At any rate, I’m mentally exhausted now. As this took several hours longer than I intended. But it needed to be done, and I have wanted for a long time to write something up to help folks better understand how to choose what. As well as a smidgen of a glimpse of what all goes into the attempts at keeping things both manageable as well as functional.

To those that made it this far, I genuinely, and most sincerely appreciate your time in reading this. And I hope that it has helped provide a better understanding into the history of some things, and how and why we are where we’re at (in some respects).

I only volunteer this out of appreciation to those that have helped pave the way for me, and hope that this helps any/all who follow.

Yours truly,
Rob

13 Likes

reserved 1
:wink:

1 Like

reserved 2
:slight_smile:

1 Like

WTF :frowning:
This is all getting confusing. I recently bought a Blackberry (CAP), but now I assume it’s the new version. I thought we were making a mess at ELR but the manufacturers are not doing much better. I can only imagine how flavor notes get all mixed up this way too.

5 Likes

still being sold…

2 Likes

Is there a flavor list somewhere where all changes are collected and documented?
I thought I was pretty up to date with changes and evolution but apparently I’m not any wiser as someone who just jumped in… it’s all pretty messed up, I can’t even trust my own flavor stash anymore.

4 Likes

Like I said…

Though it’s worth mentioning that I’m not sure when the transition (name change) occurred at Cap.

It could have been days ago, or months ago. All I am trying to point out is that there has been a change, and that folks need to be aware of that so they can start using the new listing.

In addition to the fact that often times, vendors don’t update their website to reflect changes like this for days, to weeks, to months. :wink:

The larger the retailer, the more likely they are to update their product listings (since they sell faster, and become aware of changes faster). The smaller the shop, the longer it will take to move through inventory (typically).

Only at the manufacturer(s). sigh
My findings are by observation, and are only what we’ve seen (publicly). Never mind the behind the scenes revisions that never make it to the light of day…

Yes it’s frustrating, but as I said previously, we’re all trying to do the best we can! :wink:

4 Likes

@Sprkslfly Thanks for going to all this trouble Rob, I really do appreciate it.
I’ll go though my stock and try to identify any anomalies.

5 Likes

Thank you!
It means a lot.

While I led with Capella examples…
There’s a few major (long time) brands this applies to (and that was the larger intent of my posting these examples).
It just happened to be that I was in the middle of a “Cap session” when I started to pull examples for putting a post together…

I don’t want everyone (anyone) to go into a ‘panic’ about it (not saying you are), but needed to break the ice on the topic somewhere. :wink:

5 Likes

Noted and understood :grinning:

3 Likes

and then, came flavour art…

3 Likes

Oh man, for real? :cry:
Here I thought that was one of the more consistent brands on the market

3 Likes

Yes. For real. lol (in a crying while laughing kind of way)

Go have a look at one of their flavorings. (it’s more obvious on some of their oldest flavors).

Now compare the (current) product name with what’s in the actual url.

Example
Lime is a good one.
Lime cold pressed…
Lime Tahity cold pressed…

FA is (fairly) good about tracking previous names of the same product through what’s listed in the url
Etc etc

3 Likes

ok, but those are different flavors & names. they’re not using a different recipe under the same name.
oh well, i guess it’s something we’ll have to live with. Let’s just hope those changes are mostly improvements.

2 Likes

Line cold pressed is the same as lime Tahity cold pressed.

3 Likes

Oh ok… name changes are not that bad as long as the product remains the same. I’ve gotten quite used to changing flavor names :wink:

4 Likes

Same here @Sprkslfly.

3 Likes

I have been struggling to just place an order that will allow me to make some recipes. or should I say I’m struggling to gather recipes that actually have ingredients I can still buy. I was just getting ready to go drive down the rabbit hole again when I thought I’d stop by here and read some of the posts I hadn’t read yet. I’m not even sure if I am glad I saw this or if I just want to cry and laugh deliriously. I do not want to go spend $9 on one bottle of flavor from flavorah if it’s about to disappear. It’s really confusing and I’ve been looking at recipes on ELR and ATF… reading all the flavor notes and trying to make purchases from an informed point of view. I was going to buy some of those flavors that you thankfully just let us know our discontinued. I need to buy a coffee and I can’t even find parulian or whatever the name of the manufacturer is but it seems they’re the only decent coffee based on ratings now that cup of Joe is out of the picture. oh hey by the way thank you for this! it truly is helpful to know this and I know we will figure it out with all of the wonderful people like yourself that are helping. I’m doing this because of a flavor ban in my state, and I’m finding that I can make things taste more to my liking then what I was able to buy via retail. so I’m going to continue this even if they lift the ban. thanks again for the information!

5 Likes

Purilum?
If yes, that is available from @Nicotine_River (formerly Nicotine River). :wink:

Definitely understand… Been there. :wink:

While I completely understand not wanting to fall in love with a flavor that is being discontinued, the upside with Flavorah (similar or better with MF and NF) is that one bottle will last you a great deal longer than most of the commonly available flavors!

As are many others. Regardless, while I’m very sorry to hear about the ban, I’m thrilled to hear that you are taking up mixing rather than buy into the lies and rhetoric being pushed by the uninformed and those who an ulterior motive. :thumbsup:

Glad that you are finding it useful! :smiley:

All the best,
Rob

5 Likes

Bump for new eyes to find easier.

While some info should probably updated, the majority still holds true in the “things you might encounter” during your ELR mixing tenure.

Wishing new members much success in mixing…

7 Likes