I totally get what Bill is talking about with Vermillion, and I used to get the same thing from Darthvapers (they said the same thing as VR, except they said they made their own), but what I didn't get from either of them, like I get from M&P or Moondrop, is that strange green taste (and sometimes green residue). To me that is the one thing that distinguishes what DV used, and what VR uses, from TA.
Way back when (2011), when VermillionRiver started out as an online juice vendor, I vaped
a lot of their Kentucky Blend and Kentucky Vanilla. Those two were staples of my daily liquids for about a year. Along the way, I tried other VR spin-offs---Kentucky Maplewood, Blend No. 7, KY4, and KMaxx, but none of those grabbed me the way the first two had. After a year, though, all the VermillionRiver tobaccos were kicked off my bandwagon, sidelined by other, more authentic NETs from GeJ, Ahl, MOV, QnJ, etc.
With regard to TA in retail juices, I cut my teeth on Mom&PopVaporShop and Moondrop. M&P were especially bold in their use of TA, right down to the slight greenish-yellow tint that's such a dead giveaway about the liberal use of "raw" or less-diluted TA (since that green-yellow residue has an oily look and feel). VermillionRiver tobaccos share some of that characteristic TA taste, but---as Mr.M notes---none of the telltale oily residue. My speculation was that, compared to M&P or Moondrop, VermillionRiver might have used less TA along with a higher percentage of synthetic tobacco flavorings, but perhaps steam distillation and further dilution of TA play a role as well.
To me, VermillionRiver tobacco eliquids are almost all hybrids. Unlike many natural tobacco retail vendors, VR seems to have no straight tobaccos in their line-up. Classic Blend is the closest to a straight-up tobacco, but even that one has some hybrid resonance. That's not a criticism, by the way, just a neutral perception, since it boils down to a business decision on the part of the vendor about which segment of the market to go after.
I make the same decision every time I order tobacco for home extraction---what shall I buy? aromatic? non-aromatic? I don't find "pure" tobacco to be inherently tastier or more satisfying than tobacco blends that are infused with other flavors. If, on any given day, I have a hankering for one type, the other type won't please me. When I want a nice blend, pure tobacco is almost off-putting, and, conversely, when I long for the taste of true tobacco, blended hybrids taste like candy or adulterated flavors. Happily, both types are available in a seemingly unending parade of wonderful varieties.
