I wouldn't give up on Crystal Liquid yet! Some of the flavours are hit and miss, but a couple of my favourite flavours are from Crystal Liquid.
There was definitely something up with your bottle of Summer Strawberry. Sweet mustard? Air freshener? It's not great and I don't recommend that particular flavour as Crystal Liquid has some amazing better flavours but I think it is al right. Nothing special, but not nearly as dreadful as you describe! The throat hit and vapor production are good. The flavour is alright but I'm not a fruit fan myself. Seems like there was something up with your bottle!
I think it has a
tobacco base so that might be why you don't like it? There is a new formula which I think doesn't have a tobacco base.
I'd say it is either the tobacco base, the heat from being lost in transport spoiling the bottle or subjective taste or a mixture of those, because al though I don't think it is special Summer Strawberry is not a sweet mustard air freshner flavour lol and I think overall Crystal Liquid is really good.
Recommended Juices:
Crisp Apple Original Formula (haven't tried the new formula, apparently it is similar)
Cafe Cappuccino
Cheeky Peach
Peppermint Passion (optionally mixed with Chocolate which is even better)
RY4 (hated at first, really grew on me after settling)
all very good flavours from electronic-cigz.com and I hear good things about Waffle Crave and Apple Bomb so I'll be trying those along with Watermelon Wonder and their new Chocolate Coconut soon (and all of the above recommended juices).
I didn't like the RY4 at first but after putting it on the shelf for a couple weeks it started to grow on me more and more. I'd like to hear what you think of it. You may have to accustom to it. I really did not like it at first. I think it was a mix of letting it settle and getting accustomed to the flavour.
Was your RY4 and other bottles lost in transit with the Summer Strawberry? Just by the sounds of your description it seems like the fact that it was lost in transit is what made it taste so bad, so if your other bottles from Crystal Liquid were all in the same package they might all have gone bad. Curious as to what you thinm about the other flavours you got.
The Crisp Apple (Original Formula) is amazing! I like it more than BackWoodsBrew's applewood. The new formula apparently doesn't have a tobacco base I think? I'll be getting a sample of it to compare. I'm also going to try their VG base Apple Bomb which FreeFlow mentioned is really good (holding him to it!).
Crystal Liquid's Cafe Cappuccino is absolutely amazing as well. I like it more than BWB's Caramel Cappuccino to use BWB as a comparison again just because of how widely praised they are.
Which Peach did you get? Their Cheeky Peach is amazing, but their Juicy Peach is not my thing. I'm not a huge fruit fan but Crystal Liquid's Cheeky Peach is one of the few fruit flavours I can vape.
Their French Vanilla tasted perfumy to me at first. I mixed it with Cafe Cappuccino and it was really good. After it sat for a couple weeks I tried it on it's own and it was really good. He doesn't mix to order but I think he keeps low stock so it is usually fairly fresh so you might have to let the juices settle before passing final judgement.
Gourmet Coffee is fairly good, but it's a little strong for me. It is a straight strong coffee flavour. I'm going to have to revisit Bold Coffee because I loved it right off the bat, but hated it when I put it in a cartridge the next day. Might be the cart vs dripping or day to day tastes changing, but it surprised me. For a coffee flavour nothing beats Cafe Cappuccino.
As far as flavours I didn't like their cigar flavour Havana Dream was too strong. Chocolate isn't great on its own, but mixed with Peppermint Passion it is really good. Juicy Peach nothing special. They should just drop Juicy Peach since they have the stellar Cheeky Peach already. Summer Strawberry, not the best, but I went through the 10 ml bottle no problem.
I just tried BackWoodsBrew for my first time a couple weeks ago. I got Malty Toffee, RY4, 555, Applewood, Peach, Honey Flue Nut, Caramel Cappuccino, Vanilla Bean and Watermelon and I've had a chance to try all of them and get a good idea about most of them so I've tried a lot that BWB has to offer. Overall BackWoodsBrew flavours are more reliable than Crystal Liquid flavours as I really like all of BWB's flavours, but I find the Crystal Liquid flavours that really shine are even better than BWB.
