short fill eliquid: a complex mix of black currant and grape and unique combination of mixed fruits.
No more than 20% flavor concentrates
70/30 vg/pg mix.
One thing I’ve learned with juice vendors and many months of winning clone juice contests is to take the vendor label at face value as much as you can, especially the ordering of the flavors.
a complex mix of black currant and grape and unique combination of mixed fruits.
turns into…
black currant, grape, mixed fruits.
No more than 20% flavor concentrates
Flavor
Brand / Source
%
Blackcurrant
FlavourArt (FA) or The Perfumer’s Apprentice (TPA)
6%
Grape (Juice or White)
FlavourArt (FA) or The Perfumer’s Apprentice (TPA)
5%
Forest Fruit
FlavourArt (FA)
6%
Fuji Apple
TFA or your preference
2%
I haven’t used, or seen used, forest fruit in a long time, but it was also the go-to on mixed berries, i think it used to be called harvest berry at one point.
Separately if the vendor didn’t list a cream, they probably didn’t use a cream. What you might be sensing it something probably like cotton candy, smooth, sour, or some sort of damper to mix it.
If they use cream, then they’ll smear it all across their label like “this is the creamiest creamy cream that’s ever creamed”.
Take this all with a grain of salt that I don’t list sweetener, it makes a great juice awesome, but doesn’t make a good juice great. It also burns coils like no bodies bidness. Try to get the flavor profile down before digging with sweetener.
That’s a really good point about the cream, if it was in there then surely it would be mentioned, I mean they mention In the others they do.
It’s funny you should mention cotton candy because that’s exactly one of the break throughs I think I’ve made, that’s exactly what I thought I was tasting quite early on but put it to the back of my mind, it’s only when watching a video on Ethyl Maltol It all started clicking. I think they have used it to flatten and subdue some of the flavours as well, I’m thinking somewhere between 1-2%
I think you’re absolutely right about the simplicity of this and I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming to that conclusion. I think I’ve been making every damn rookie mistake in the book. I have a few way more sensible mixes steeping and I’ll see how they turn out. Still think I could simplify it more though.
I think I’ve been making every damn rookie mistake in the book.
We’ve all been there. Just be patient with it, most of the fun is the journey. I started mixing to make that white lotus juice, and i think it was easily like two years before it was found, by someone else. You’ll get it.
After reading that series of posts, it left me wondering…could you please specify what your final version of that recipe was please? Sounds amazing. Thanks in advance!
Hi there from facebook. I will have to try that molinberry blackcurrant as I don’t have any. I do have the INW Grapes but I don’t think it’s a good fit, there’s not an outwardly obvious grape in the original, and I think it’s basically a small percentage of something like FA Concord Grape and the natural grape like profile of the blackcurrant that’s at play here. Jay of the Rochford project sent out samples to various YouTube reviewers and on one of the reviews he commented and alluded to the fact he only used a little bit of grape as it can easily be overpowering. INW Grape is certainly that, even at low percentages.
I’m still working on the clone though, but I will try you’re recipe when I get some molinberry blackcurrant.
Yes I will remove the INW grape next batch and replace with maybe Fa Bilberry or even something less dominant. Obviously this isn’t a clone or even close. I’ve never tried this original juice but its been a fun profile to play around with. I’m gonna get chipping away at it until I feel its in the amazing all day vape zone. I’ll keep you posted when I’m happy with the final version. But I’ve done about 5 mixes so far and that one I posted has been the most enjoyable by far.
Sounds really good. It could be that a weaker grape like TFA Grape juice was used but at a really low percentage, whatever the case it’s not obvious and it’s blended seamlessly. It’s a really difficult one to nail down but I guess like you said it’s probably enough just to play with the profile and arrive at something amounting to an ADV without necessarily aiming for a clone.
Ok, I think I’m getting really close! Conservative estimate, I have something approaching a 90-95% Clone. Been down so many rabbit holes and felt like I smashed into every gnarly, protruding tree root on the way down, junked so many samples down the sink that the teenage mutant ninja turtles will have enough vape juice for the next 12 months! and I experienced epiphany after epiphany. Some of the clues where there from the start, like for instance the aroma of something resembling almond liquor on my drip tip. I learned a lot along the way and I would love to say I enjoyed every minute of it but that wouldn’t be quite truthful, some of it was down right stressful and I began to think I would never get close. One of the things that I think I’m realising is that I don’t think there is actually anything obviously tropical added to this but more the mere non-descript suggestion of one, I tried to work in all sorts of tropical fruits into this and every time it took it into a different dimension that wasn’t the one I was after, The fig that’s in here to add sweetness to the Dark berry/blackcurrants (which might need knocking back) has been described by some as coming across something tropical, would sort of makes sense now why no two reviewers could seem to agree and put there finger on it. I mean some people have even reported that they could detect something tropical in forest fruits, I can’t personally but ok.
The grape aspect of this is not only coming from the small amount of FA Grape Concord, but the syrupy dark grapey profile of the Blackcurrants, more specifically TFA Blackcurrant. On YouTube, Jay himself did say in the comments section of one of the reviewers he had sent his juices out to during it’s release, that only a little bit was added because it can easily take over a mix. FA Grape Concord was the only one that fitted, every other grape was just too grapey and all wrong, even at low percentages.
I Think as it is, this fits the bill of “A complex mixture of Blackcurrant and Grape with a unique blend of mixed fruits”. Now, while it’s close, there is more work to be done and I just need to play more with ratios and there is this sort of musky, earthiness/dryness is the only way I can best describe it, that’s in the original that isn’t quite there in my clone, I’m wondering if the cotton candy is covering it up or something and needs knocking back, or even just messing with Blackcurrant ratios and/or removing the fig. Also, I think there is a difference in the sweetener which I think might be coming from the fact the original, being a UK compliant juice, Most likely won’t of used the CAP version but something like Purilum Super sweet, which I don’t have.
The Almond/Marzipan combo seems spot on to me. I think FA marshmallow needs to go in as well, all stuff I have to explore.
Glad to see youre persevering with this one and sounds like youre moving in the right direction.
I dont know the juice personally but a quick google fu tells me that it is available in the UK.
With that said and as far as im aware all juice manafactured for the uk market tends to be TPD compliant regardless of it containing nicotine or not.
Technicality as a one shot, bottle shot, or shortfill etc does not contain nicotine therefore is not bound by the same testing but it is highly likely it has been made to pass.
Capella Super Sweet would not pass the testing due to the unknowns so id have presumed it wouldnt be in the original.
Description
Capella Super Sweet
Capella Super Sweet Flavour Concentrate
This flavour is a highly concentrated sucralose based sweetener.
Ok, think I was wrong about the addition of FA almond, It was adding some additional almond thickness/waxiness that wasn’t in the original, I am however 100% sure that marzipan is in this and that is where the sweet almond aspect is coming from. I was able to detect other differences and had a rethink, I made another omission and also had a little theory that the original was mainly sticking to recommended “in the mix” percentages, and now it seems even closer!! though, I need to steep it a little to be fully sure.
I think the addition of meringue was exactly what was needed here, and it was this that I was looking for all along and not cotton candy, though even this might need reducing to 0.5%. I think if I remove the cotton candy entirely it’ll be even closer still as I think it’s been rounding off the little edges that I actually needed, I could basically detect the difference taking it from 1% to 0.5%.
Removed the CAP blackcurrant, the slight cat pissy presence of CAP Blackcurrant is what gave that one away and told me that’s not in the original. As I smell and taste the original, I can definitely detect the TPA Blackcurrant.
I don’t think Boysenberry is in this, I think I tried that early on in this journey and determined it didn’t fit, but I’ll keep it at the back of my mind if I feel something is still missing, though to be honest I think the backup/complexity for the blackcurrant is coming from the berries that are already built in to the forest mix, the elegant simplicity of it would certainly make sense for a commercial juice.
Like everyone has been saying, I think this recipe is just fairly simple and mainly sticking to one flavour brand, commercial sense and all that. The marzipan makes it a really nice treat and is known to pair well with Fig, and Fig is known to add sweetness/brightness to dark berry mixes and add a jammy quality to Grape. Though not a tropical fruit, I thinks it’s the fig that’s responsible for the non-descript tropical suggestion as well, the notes for the flavour does mention that. There’s not many other places this recipe can go now’ it’s so close!!
Need to go away and play with this a lot more because knowing me I could be wrong about being wrong lol
Got to go back to drawing board with this a little because basically it turns out I’m an absolute idiot!! I think I’ve somehow been mistaking the taste of vanilla with the taste of almond/marzipan!! What I’ve discovered is that marzipan is most likely not in this at all, post steep, it certainly doesn’t taste like it even at the low percentages I’ve been using, though, I thought it did initially. I can however discern that there is some vanilla in this, I can detect the spicy note, what with the slight creaminess, it got me thinking maybe FA vanilla Tahiti. I did think Tahiti a while back as I know that has an almond note in it and is generally thought to be a good addition to fruits. The only thing that’s telling me it’s not Tahiti is the fact that it has a colour to it from the get go and imparts a colour into the mix even at low percentages. I decanted some of the original from a brand new bottle I got the other day and it’s crystal clear, surely if it had something like that in it then I would of received it with some colour to it, or does a fresh bottle of Tahiti initially come clear and I have a bottle of black vine that hasn’t fully gained colour?? but then I’ve had the new bottle for a few days now and it’s still crystal clear…mmm
Everything else is basically not a million miles away, I know I’m in the ballpark. Just need to keep testing my batches, adjusting ratios and try and nail that down before I start thinking of creams and/or other additions.
