Have you looked into the NET threads here yet?
(naturally extracted tobacco)
They could give some very helpful advice/pointers, as well as point you to resources to purchase pre-made NETs. 
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All I see is RY4 NET or Virginia tobacco. I know RY4 isn’t going to work for him. Do you have a link to more? Thanks
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Ohh I found this: https://www.naturally-extracted-tobacco.com/ReviewsList.asp?SortBy=Newest&Page=2&ProductCode=SUN-CURED-TURKISH&Reviews=Y
Seems promising, although I was hoping for a flavor not a premixed
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@Josephine_van_Rijn
@Kinnikinnick
@anon13011326
Is there a chance you good folks can lend a hand here?
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For starters:
There are more around authentic tobacco flavors I’m sure. But you need to use the search icon (here, in ELR, the magnifying glass in the upper right).
Hopefully some of the folks more familiar with these types can offer additional information.
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If you create a specific thread about this subject over in:
I will respond and have some specific suggestions for you.
But I think others are right it is off the OP topic thread if posted here.
-
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Below is a list of Synthetic Tobacco flavors I find enjoyable… mostly in combination with other flavors. But the truest tobacco experience I’ve had is with NETs. NETs are probably as close as you will experience to real tobacco taste, but I also find some synth tobaccos to be pretty close and enjoyable with a lot less work and expense.
Cured Tobacco (Flavorah)
Kentucky Blend (Flavorah)
Red Burley (Flavorah)
Virginia Tobacco (Flavorah)
Virginia (FA)
Am4A (Inawera)
Dark Tobacco (Inawera)
Gold Ducat (Inawera)
Tobacco, DNB (Dirty Neutral Base) (Inawera) "an absolutely must have"
Fine Cuban Tobacco (NicVape E-Flavors)
Carolina Tobacco (NicVape)
There are a few more, but these are my main synth tobaccos I use most often. With some testing and research you might find what you’re looking for.
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FYI … Here’s some good threads on tobacco and mixes:
http://forum.e-liquid-recipes.com/search?q=Tobacco%20recipes
My suggestion would be a mix including flavors such as:
Turkish Blended (HS)
Turkish (SC)
Am4A (INW)
Dromedary (INW)
Dirty Neutral Base (INW)
…most of which can be obtained at Bull City Flavors. You might need to hit up some other vendors for the DNB (INW), a must have with cig-a-like liquids.
You’ll have to do the R&D on the percentages of these suggested flavors needed in a mix… everyone’s tastebuds are different and taste is subjective. However, just one of those flavors listed above, mixed with 1% DNB, will head you in the right direction.
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I find the burley from flv to have one of the more realistic profiles.
Edit: my bad, already in the list above, missed it somehow. As contrition, this worked for one of my friends who had been rejecting every mix as too sweet
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I know you the OP said camel… but take a chance on my recipe here… read the reviews and tinker…
could be a good starting point?? maybe?? 
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The Gold Ducat is one of the flavours that Inawera had to change, I haven’t had it since but if it is as bad as the new Milk Chocolate they have then I would give it a miss.
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Like @Pro_Vapes and @Kinnikinnick stated, for that analog taste your going to want to add a bit of dnb to the mix. I have that additive but never used it so can’t really advise on it’s actual usage. I originally purchased it to make a analog mix for a person who moved just after I had ordered it.
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The Adventures of Joe Camel and the Old Dripper Continues - Part I
I have a friend I’ve been trying hard to get off cigs. He’s about as particular as me. He smokes camel filters….Any suggestions?
This is a common refrain, question, pleading, request, call it what you want, but it turns up fairly often out in the vape world.
I would like to give you my thoughts on this.
Since The total answer is very involved and covers many subjects as almost everything in vaping is involved that effects a successful outcome, all I can hope to do here is give a little thumb-nail starters overview to clear away some of the more prevalent cobwebs and mis-information that is common on this subject. I will split my answer into two posts. But there will still be much detail left unsaid. Hopefully the following two post thumb nail overview will be of some benefit.
First, of course the DISCLAIMER:
As everyone here understands, TIS, = “taste is subjective”. These comments are from the perspective of my taste buds only. Your milage might vary. FYI, in real life I am a NET tobacco vaper only. I do not, as a matter of personal choice and flavor preference, vape any synthetic flavors whether that be fruits and desserts on the one hand all the way to so-called ‘ synthetic tobacco’ on the other. I vape NETs only. Therefore, as in all published papers that attempt to explore a narrow subject matter, you must always look for ‘investigator bias’. I readily admit that there is plenty of that here.
Let’s start here: (PART 1)
For fun let’s give the Newbie on a Quest for a Camel Cig and his/her Mentor a name. We will call the newbie “Joe Camel” and he wants to quit combustable Camel cigarettes. We will call you (the Mentor) “The Old Dripper”.
First things first:
A few questions to ask Joe so we can get some information about where he is in the progression of using vaping to quit combustibles. For Joe Camel it will be a progression, a journey, and there is a start point. To properly help him we need Joes start point frame of reference. We need to know “where is Joe currently at?”
Ask Joe these questions:
1.) Has he ever vaped any vape product at all?
2.) If so what is the product name and type?
3.) If he has tried at least the two types like PODs and low end Tank/Kit which does he prefer.
4.) Is he familiar with some vape jargon like Direct Lung and Mouth To Lung?
If the above answers are mostly NO, then you will have to assemble a few products for him and step him thru the way each of those devices behave. At first, I would suggest you just mix up some 25/50 PG/VG (no flavorings, no NIC) and spent an afternoon letting him master the basics and work through the initial trepidation of such a novel concept. Judge his reactions, be observant. What is important to him? The clouds? or perhaps he likes to play with what pipe smokers call the ‘retro-hale’ (nose to mouth). Be observant, notice how he handles the vapor. What is his cadence between puffs, what verbal comments does he make about the experience?
After this initial ‘test session’ your work starts to begin. Hopefully Joe has just shown you a preference for certain types of vaping style.
Based on the style lets go to work with an example formula, and see how we will tailor it to the new vaper.
Explain to Joe that Taste is Subjective and that at first we are NOT looking for a result of “oh my God I just found the Holy Grail, I found by Gods luck the one juice formula that I will vape fore-ever…” Explain that patience is a virtue. It probably took him many years and many trips to various fast food joints to find the perfect greasy fries and burgers, vaping is no different, you have to try a lot of different things before your get the perfect fit…
But here is where we get down to brass tacks and some important considerations with converting a combustable smoker to a “tobacco vaper”. And this is where you as the “Old Dripper” must stay on your toes.
You might not be a “tobacco vaper” yourself, so some of the following might be new news even to you, but, trust me, it is critically important that you wrap your head around the following paragraphs so that you can do a proper job as the “Old Dripper”… —>>:Do you realized that: Most of what is passed off in the synthetic pre mix and DIY-recipe worlds that is called “tobacco vape juice” is not tobacco at all ?
Most of those recipes are just simple adaptations of someones favorite fruit or pastry recipe or candy recipe with a few drops of some very low quality imitation tobacco synthetic thrown in. Then the maker gets out his Label Machine and slaps a label that says “Fine Cuban Tobacco Vape” … A couple of problems with that. First, it is unlikely that the maker ever in his life tasted a Cuban Cigar, and second there is no a chance in Hell that mixing an overly sweet totally artificial pastry with a few drop of “something” will have the flavor profile of a Cuban Cigar or “Joe Camels’ beloved combustable cigarettes. To put it bluntly, in the internet vape recipe world, there is a level of nonsense, of mislabeling, and outright lying about what is a “tobacco vape”. It is at a point that it is almost beyond crazy. Confusion abounds everywhere and Candy and all various recipe makers have tossed out something they call a “tobacco vape”. But the reality is that almost none are, in any sense, ‘tobacco vapes’.
So the hazard is that your efforts to convert your friend Joe Camel to vaping is in real danger of failure as you give him sample of one overly sweet pastry after another. You will just confuse him and discourage his efforts. Let’s get him some tobacco flavor profiles right from the start.
So what makes up a “Tobacco Vape” ?
Time for a few definitions of words. Basically there are Four Group types of ingredients for tobacco vapes.
One Group is natural extractions made from real tobacco leaves. Some of those leafs may have benefited from careful and experienced hands that have fermented them in very specialized and controlled ways, or minimally processed them with methods like “flu curing” or extended aging. You see these ingredients in marketed products like Naturally-Extracted-Tobacco, LLC , as well as many small boutique providers like Want2Vape, and of course, us home DIY NET types.
Second Group is commercially made extractions from real tobacco using modern industrial herb and flavor extraction processes. Most people do not realize but this has become a huge industry in the food flavoring business and operates internationally. Some of these products are made with great care and are very high quality. For many years the center of this industry was in Italy, but now has taken a strong foothold in USA as well. You see these ingredients in highly marketed products like Black Note. You can buy these as concentrates for your own recipe mixing in products by INW (INAWERA) and some NicVape products
Third Group is not an extraction nor is it related to tobacco at all. It is the world of the synthetic food chemist. Because the flavor components of tobacco has been studied in great detail, it is known what the basic core compounds are that give tobacco its distinctive flavor taste and aroma. By creating analog molecules in the lab it is possible to make a product that seems to mimic tobacco for the consumer. The PROs of that is that the resulting product is patentable and can be financially protected by the manufacture, and also that it is usually very cheap to produce on an industrial scale, much cheaper than making natural extractions of the real plant material. The CONs is the chemistry brings with it unwanted secondary by products. Usually these have undesirable aroma and flavor components. Typical unwanted components are “plastic taste” and unpleasant and persistent tastes that take over and persist in the olfactory senses unlike natural flavors that dissipate in a pleasant and timely manner. You see these ingredients in highly marketed products like FLAVORAH - Additionally, often heard mis-information, is that somehow the artificial synthetic favors are “safer” than real tobacco extraction. The chemistry of that would have to be the subject of some other thread (actually books have been written on this subject and the chemistry is too involved to go into here. For those that are interested and have a college level background in chemistry you can PM me and I will give to you a bibliography list) . The short of the long of it is that commercial food chemists are mostly lying to you about the safety of their products.
Fourth Group is not so much of a group related to tobacco but is more a phenomenon of Social Media discourse, and has added tremendous confusion to the whole noble subject of “tobacco vapes”… I mentioned this above when I talked about “recipes that are just simple adaptations of someones favorite fruit or pastry recipe or candy recipe with a few drops of some very low quality imitation tobacco synthetic thrown in.” Then labeled and sold to you and Joe Camel as “Tobacco Vape”. If there has been nothing else in the entire world of vaping that has conspired to doom your friend Joe Camel to never have success with vaping it is that group of mis-labeled “products”. I understand that there are thousands of such recipes in the e-liquides-reciepie side of this web site, but please resist the temptation to use any of those when trying to bring along someone like our friend Joe Camel. Let’s get Joe Camel a pure simple experience he can use to start his vaping journey. An experience he can readily relate to. Let’s not shell shock his taste buds and his years of experience with combustibles and confuse him with this rag tag Fourth Group of recipes which amount to little more than a huge bag full of artificially flavored skittles with a slight almost undetectable drop of tobacco flavor thrown in as an after thought.
Now On to Part II
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The Adventures of Joe Camel and the Old Dripper Continues - Part II
In part I we observed Joe Camel using several vaping devices. We made some notes, and created a plan of attack.
Hopefully it showed up during the tests that there was a clear cut device and style preference on his part. If not, try to steer him to a simple RDA or RTA in the 18 to 22mm size on top of a simple single 18650 regulated mod. Set him up with a 2.55 SS coil over 1.0 ohm at not more than 15 watts. Keep the airflow restriction down tight, in agreement with his past pattern of cigarette draws. In all cases try to steer him away from pods unless he insists. Although there are many pod adapters now made for regulated devices, it will be a hassle to clean and change wicking and coils on pod vape devices given the nature of the natural products that tend to gunk up coils much more so than synthetic products.
If low wattage single coils is not possible, and for some reason he is enamored with a huge dual coil sub ohm cloud setup, then don’t panic. Go with the flow. It’s all about Joe being comfortable. However, and here is an important point. When vaping real tobacco vapes (from my grouping in the first post of Numbers Group 1 and Group 2) You will have to adjust the recipe formula for larger cloud devices by adding VG to a base formula and dropping the NIC. This type of adjustment occurs in conventional non tobacco formulas as well, but it is super important when dealing with real tobacco vapes !
As a way of explaining this dilution process lets start with a simple example formula that is a nice dry Marlboro like Cigarette;
Example Recipe #1 Marlboro (Restricted MTL 15w)
1.5g - PG
4.5g - VG
0.5g - INW DNB -
0.2g - INW Virginia Abs -
0.4g - INW Garuda Abs -
0.6g - Nic (100mg/ml)
Example Recipe #2 Marlboro (Airy DL 35w)
2.5g - PG
7.5g - VG
0.5g - INW DNB -
0.2g - INW Virginia Abs -
0.4g - INW Garuda Abs -
0.3g - Nic (100mg/ml)
Let’s talk about this formula a little bit. First the method to mix any formula I present here is just to get an accurate scale that measures in grams and make the formula up exactly as I list it. Do Not try to translate it to the e-liquids calculator or any other “conversion type” calculator that is using hidden behind the scenes algorithms to give you “percentages” or “specific gravities” Just use the formula EXACTLY as I present it here. Mix by weight ONLY.
Note in the above two formulas that I have adjusted NIC and the ratio of PG/VG. Again, real tobacco extracts are very sensitive to the type of device, the wattage, and the coil type. I suggest simple single wire 316L Stainless. Stay away from exotic coils, and Kanthal will impart ‘off’ flavors to tobacco.
Now, depending on how our friend Joe Camel has reacted to this first round of taste testing you can proceed to use your judgement from here and possibly modify the formulas. But I suggest you let him go home with a 10ml bottle of these and let him “live with ti” a bit. Remember, he is making a big mental, lifestyle, and social change. It takes time. Be patient with him and supportive.
After he returns you can discuss his impressions of the experience. If he is making noises that this “pretty good” but needs to taste more like tobacco, then you have the oppurtinuty to Hybrid the base formula with a real NET like this:
Example Recipe #3 Marlboro (Airy DL 35w) HYBRID:
10.0g - 25/75 PG/VG Base:
0.5g - INW DNB -
0.2g - INW Virginia Abs -
0.4g - INW Garuda Abs -
0.3g - Nic 100mg/ml
2.0g - PreMixed Nicaraguan Cigar Filler
This will add a distinct “cigar note” and surprisingly many lifetime cigarette smokers have all along been “closet cigar smokers” and adapt readily to cigar flavor profiles added to their vape. To obtain Pure Leaf extractions like the Cigar Filler above you can make your own NETs or obtain them from some boutique shops that are willing to sell small quantities. PM me for details.
If you want to try another Marlboro formula for Joe Camel here is another HYBRID using products from NicVape and Want2Vape
Example Recipe #4 Marlboro (Restricted MTL 15w)
NicVape Cuban (0.52g)
NicVape Tenn (1.05g)
Want2Vape STOCKHOLM (2.10g)
VG (6.5 g)
PG (3.5
NIC 100mg/ml (0.7)
By this time I hope you are making good progress with your friend Joe Camel and are dialing in the taste flavor profile direction that he wants to travel towards.
Let’s RE-CAP a couple of take-away points from all this:
-
Stay away from commercial premixed so-called “tobacco vapes” like TRBECA /Halo which although labeled as Tobacco, are anything but!
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Stay away from recipes you find on line that look like the kitchen sink with a little “tobacco” thrown in
-
Many dedicated and experienced NET types that are looking for pure tobacco taste (like our friend Joe Camel is) commonly use only a single extraction in the formula (like those that enjoy Single Malt Scotch), and rarely have a formula with more than 3 items ALL of which must be tobacco !
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Mix Your own from products in the Group Numbers 1&2 above. Relying on pre-mixed commercial vendors is probably hopeless and a waste of time and money.
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Stay away from sweeteners and what is know in the pipe blending world as “casings” These can be chocolates, rums, anise, and so forth. If you want to experiment with English Pipe Blends that have traditionally used these type of casings, then you would be better off extracting a NET from professionally blended experts like Russ Ouellette at Lane Ltd… If you want to experiment with such samples see my blog.
PS: INAWERA products can be hard to find, as they are made with real tobacco. Some USA Vendors like BullCity no longer carry them for fear that the FDA will take a dim eye about that practice. You can, however, get them here:
http://www.inaweraflavours.com/en/
https://www.vaperstek.org/inawera-brand-flavors/
NicVape is here
Want2Vape is here:
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Wow, great write up. Thanks for all the info
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I know your trying to find a synth for your friend to get off cigs. I get it. If they stays on the tobacco flavor train, are they still going to smoke? Just a question for the friend. Good luck. Remember you can lead the horse to water, but it may not drink.
Unless you dunk that fucker in the trough! Just a theory.
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I rarely go for tobacco flavours myself by the way.
Have your friend try some non sweet herbals/menthols type vapes. Find them much nicer. I am on
and I find it much nicer than any tobacco vape. Most smokers are more after the gesture than the taste of tobacco/smoke.
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Black Note has some excellent options in their line-up, but Cavendish makes this best vape flavors list for the realistic tobacco taste and a subtle, natural sweetness underpinning the whole thing. It is a naturally extracted tobacco so real tobacco leaves are steeped in VG and PG to get the authentic e liquid flavour and another thing is that Cavendish strikes a great balance between the complexity of flavor and being gentle enough to still be enjoyable if you aren’t a tobacco connoisseur.
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Hi, 50YearsOfCigars!
Sorry for bumping the old topic but I just came across it and, as I’m able to buy these essences, I’d like to give it a try. So far I had no luck mixing a cigarette-tasting e-liquid but this recipe (combined with your extensive knowledge) sounds very promising!
I have 3 questions and I’d REALLY appreciate if you could give me a hand here.
-
If I’d mix this, I’d end up with about 60VG/40PG (assuming you used PG nicotine). Is that correct?
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My math skills failed me when I tried to figure out what nicotine strength I’d end up with. Could you give me the answer?
-
When converted to percentages, I could see that you used
6.4% of INW DNB
2.5% of INW Virginia ABS
5.1% of INW Garuda ABS
along with
19.4% of PG base
58.4% of VG base
7.7% of nicotine base
Now, I wonder if I should use same percentages and mix PG/VG and nicotine to my preference or you would adjust percentages of these 3 ingredients?
Thank you very much in advance for your help!
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I believe 50year’s examples above are for a Hybrid mix, meaning a combination of NET (Naturally Extracted Tobacco) and commercial tobacco flavors / enhancers (the INW ingredients).
The 6.4% DNB is way too high. Preferred percentage in a mix is .5% - 1.0%. A little DNB goes a long way. It’s supposed to add a bit of ashiness to a mix. It’s an attempt to recreate some of the ‘combusted tobacco’ element from smoking.
Coming from a 45 year pack a day+ smoker (who tried) to recreate that combusted tobacco element in a vape mix… it’s just not going to happen. After 7 years of vaping tobacco mixes (mostly commercial flavorings) it’s my ‘opinion’ that what I’ve managed to do is retrain my taste buds to find satisfaction in what the commercial flavorings provide. It must have worked (for me) I haven’t had a smoke in that 7 year span.
I don’t want to discourage you in your quest. Stay on the hunt. Commercial tobacco flavorings have improved over the years. There’s some good ones out there. Unfortunately there’s no Marlboro in a bottle flavors.
Hang in there and keep trying!
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