Juice review website from professional chef

[chefjosh]

Looks good, I'd love to see a lot more reviews in the future.

Thanks Yashoki, and everyone else who's posted over the last couple of days. As far as more reviews are concerned, there are 116 reviews right now, somewhere around 95 bottles waiting for review, and a couple dozen more either in transit or being mixed in the next couple days, so I don't foresee a shortage of juice to review

 

[dragonfly13]

Very cool!

 

[ElProximus]

Sounds like a real labor of love

 

[KillTheNoise]

One thing I'd like to add/request would be a "favorites" or "top 10/top20"...that would be awesome!

 

[Kashi]

Thank you so much for the site. This is perfect for a noob like me to get some ideas about where to start with juice flavors.

 

[chefjosh]

One thing I'd like to add/request would be a "favorites" or "top 10/top20"...that would be awesome!

Another oft requested feature, but I'm somewhat torn on the idea. I try to keep my personal opinions out of the reviews and focus on the juice itself, judging it on it's merits alone rather than allowing my particular preferences into the picture.

I am in the process of a total revamp of the site that will allow for sort by score and I may also included a small section of the top rated juice as well, but I'm concerned that may also create a skewed picture in that the top scores in throat hit usually come from the tobaccos. So while a fruity blend may be bursting with intense, natural flavors with immense vapor production, a low throat hit score would unjustly keep them from making the list, if all scores were averaged together.

I'm still considering ways to overcome this small hurdle, but I'm not sure I know enough about coding to omit the TH score from the average, nor do I think that would be entirely fair. Perhaps 3 separate lists...one for best flavor, one for best TH, and one for best vapor production would be more fair and more functional to both vendors and vapers?

I'd be more than happy to hear anyone and everyone's thoughts on this one...what would be best for each of you?

 

[CES]

hmmm...

Throat hit vs flavor might not be an issue in terms of creating a top juices list.

With a quick skim of your site, only two of the flavors that you've reviewed so far have good ratings on throat hit and low ratings on flavor accuracy/density. Those higher in flavor tend to have at least reasonable TH ratings. It looks like it's possible to have good vapor production and poor flavor, but that it's less likely to have good TH and poor flavor.

 

[rcbell.N51]

Another oft requested feature, but I'm somewhat torn on the idea. I try to keep my personal opinions out of the reviews and focus on the juice itself, judging it on it's merits alone rather than allowing my particular preferences into the picture.

I am in the process of a total revamp of the site that will allow for sort by score and I may also included a small section of the top rated juice as well, but I'm concerned that may also create a skewed picture in that the top scores in throat hit usually come from the tobaccos. So while a fruity blend may be bursting with intense, natural flavors with immense vapor production, a low throat hit score would unjustly keep them from making the list, if all scores were averaged together.

I'm still considering ways to overcome this small hurdle, but I'm not sure I know enough about coding to omit the TH score from the average, nor do I think that would be entirely fair. Perhaps 3 separate lists...one for best flavor, one for best TH, and one for best vapor production would be more fair and more functional to both vendors and vapers?

I'd be more than happy to hear anyone and everyone's thoughts on this one...what would be best for each of you?

I would say stick with what you're doing but also add a spreadsheet style list of all liquids that people can sort by whichever column(s) they choose. Use columns like vendor, type (tobacco, dessert, drink, etc.), accuracy of flavor, flavor density, vapor production, throat hit, and overall score. That way users can sort by what they think is important. Something like this, which can even sort on multiple columns.

 

[chefjosh]

I would say stick with what you're doing but also add a spreadsheet style list of all liquids that people can sort by whichever column(s) they choose. Use columns like vendor, type (tobacco, dessert, drink, etc.), accuracy of flavor, flavor density, vapor production, throat hit, and overall score. That way users can sort by what they think is important. Something like this, which can even sort on multiple columns.

Spectacularly brilliant idea! Have to do some research to see how I could make that work, but a great solution that should make everyone happy. Thanks rcbell.

 

[KillTheNoise]

I'm loving rcbell's idea. Would be exactly what I am looking for on a review site as good as yours.

It's too big of a world for my paychecks to just go around buying juices from all different vendors, so I look to people like you and other notable reviewers for YOUR favorite juices and I go from there.

I value you opinion over reading reviews on vendors websites for, hopefully, obvious reasons.

 

[~Sue~Feb2012]

I would say stick with what you're doing but also add a spreadsheet style list of all liquids that people can sort by whichever column(s) they choose. Use columns like vendor, type (tobacco, dessert, drink, etc.), accuracy of flavor, flavor density, vapor production, throat hit, and overall score. That way users can sort by what they think is important. Something like this, which can even sort on multiple columns.

Yes stick with what you're doing and add the spreadsheet style list!

 

[chefjosh]

Plan on spending some time today trying to figure out the best way to accomplish just that. Thanks for idea rcbell, and the re-enforcement that's a good one.

 

[rcbell.N51]

Plan on spending some time today trying to figure out the best way to accomplish just that. Thanks for idea rcbell, and the re-enforcement that's a good one.

I noticed that your current site already uses jQuery. That link I used to try to show what I meant is actually a demo of a jQuery plugin. If you wanted to use it, it should be a simple matter of downloading the library, including it on a web page (or pages), and then creating the table. The hard part is going to be creating/loading the table itself. The most basic way to do it is to use a hard-coded HTML table by default, but that means writing HTML code every time you want to change or add something. Your web developer may be able to figure out something easier. If you use a database with your site you could populate the table from the database and simply add class="tablesorter" to the <table> tag. Other AJAX/Javascript solutions would also be possible.

 

[chefjosh]

I noticed that your current site already uses jQuery. That link I used to try to show what I meant is actually a demo of a jQuery plugin. If you wanted to use it, it should be a simple matter of downloading the library, including it on a web page (or pages), and then creating the table. The hard part is going to be creating/loading the table itself. The most basic way to do it is to use a hard-coded HTML table by default, but that means writing HTML code every time you want to change or add something. Your web developer may be able to figure out something easier. If you use a database with your site you could populate the table from the database and simply add class="tablesorter" to the <table> tag. Other AJAX/Javascript solutions would also be possible.

This whole idea exceeds my current scripting knowledge, but not by an exceedingly large amount, so I may be able to teach myself this sort of thing, I think. I no longer work with the programmer who helped me to design the more complex parts of the website, but I can always find someone else if absolutely necessary, I just don't love the idea of paying anyone when it's not a profit driven website and I may be able to do it myself. I also have half the website in a redesigned WP format that makes things a whole lot easier to navigate through, but I'm not in love with how it looks (I know I can change that too), so things are in flux, and no permanent decisions have been made yet, but I'm exploring all my options.

I really appreciate the help and pointers rcbell, steering me in the right direction is usually all it takes to get me moving forward.

 

[rcbell.N51]

This whole idea exceeds my current scripting knowledge, but not by an exceedingly large amount, so I may be able to teach myself this sort of thing, I think. I no longer work with the programmer who helped me to design the more complex parts of the website, but I can always find someone else if absolutely necessary, I just don't love the idea of paying anyone when it's not a profit driven website and I may be able to do it myself. I also have half the website in a redesigned WP format that makes things a whole lot easier to navigate through, but I'm not in love with how it looks (I know I can change that too), so things are in flux, and no permanent decisions have been made yet, but I'm exploring all my options.

I really appreciate the help and pointers rcbell, steering me in the right direction is usually all it takes to get me moving forward.

Understandable. I won't take up any more space for this off-topic discussion in your thread, but please, feel free to PM me if you have questions.

 

[DC2]

There is a juice that back in the day used to be really popular.
I just got some of that juice, and found it very interesting.

It is similar to Boba's Bounty in that it seems to have flavors of raisin and fig.
But in my opinion, it is even better than Boba's Bounty.

If you ever get a chance, please do a review of Vapor Station Frisco.
This may be my new favorite juice!

I'll even send you a 3ml sample if they won't send you any.

 

[chefjosh]

There is a juice that back in the day used to be really popular.
I just got some of that juice, and found it very interesting.

It is similar to Boba's Bounty in that it seems to have flavors of raisin and fig.
But in my opinion, it is even better than Boba's Bounty.

If you ever get a chance, please do a review of Vapor Station Frisco.
This may be my new favorite juice!

I'll even send you a 3ml sample if they won't send you any.

I sent them a request via their website, I'll let you know how they respond...hopefully they'll be willing to submit Frisco and maybe a couple others, but if not, I'll get around to purchasing the Frisco when I have made my way through the recent submissions and have some room in the budget to make another buy. Thanks for the recommendation DC2, it's much appreciated.

 

[neoexodus]

keep up the good work josh! Looking forward to trying the Watermelon Freeze based on your review!

 

[chefjosh]

keep up the good work josh! Looking forward to trying the Watermelon Freeze based on your review!

You'll have to let me know what you think when you receive it. It's definitely one of my fave fruit/ice blends even though personally, I like a just a touch more ice in the mix.

 

[The Monsor]

The site is great. Well done!