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rdsok

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I had my first taste of HBV a few weeks back in French Honey Pipe. Nothing about it said tobacco to me though. All I got was nutty pine-o-kleen! :unsure: I can imagine the tabac de perique not being to close to the real thing, but it's great you've found your gateway NET. Now the fun really starts! :toast:

Nick... does that bottle of HBV French Pipe actually have the word honey on it? If so, it is a custom blend and not a standard one, the standard has cherry and vanilla notes in it... but it is a pretty sweet blend so I wasn't sure if that was the real label or a slight dig...
 

Thucydides

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I know nothing about wine, don't drink it. Don't like alcohol in general. I don't get it. I tried cognac once and was like what the hell, this is just whiskey. I don't drink enough to tell the subtle differences. But as one is involved in something and acquires new knowledge, you build new neural nets in the brain and new synaptic connections and after a while can discern the subtle differences in flavor. Be it vaping or wine tasting. I'm just not at that point yet. I am also not completely off of analogs, so I haven't got my olfactory senses back as of yet. I'm hoping when I do finally transition, I can taste and smell these subtle variances you people are talking about.

I use wine as an example, and it applies to anything at all. Roller coasters, automobiles. Especially foods & beverages: ketchup, cheese, potato chips, beer, cheeseburgers, ice cream, soda pop, coffee, candy bars. Any large food company employs professional tasters to chart out flavor, texture, and scent profiles for their products, and they work according to definite and proven strategies for making their products tasty for their target consumers (e.g., the purpose of putting sticky caramel into a nutty bar is to clean the nut fragments from the teeth with each swallow). If you like (say) Heinz ketchup better than Hunts or Milky Way better than Snickers, they could likely explain to you exactly why.

At the bottom of it all, the idea of vaping is to enjoy it, and that's why I love this thread. Each one of us is part of the ideal target market for some product or another, and it doesn't need to be any more complicated than you want it to be. For my part, I like stock Chinese-made (non-NET) RY4 as well as just about anything, because it's a nice, mild, easy vape that suits pretty much any mood I'm in.

BTW: I lived in Massachusetts for 17 years. Loved it. Had to move to DC area (where I grew up) a couple years ago due to work. It's nice to be back where I grew up, but I miss Massachusetts, which seems more like home to me now that DC.
 

Nick Fantastic

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I need some input from anyone who has experience with Highbrow exotic, cigar, or RY4. I am slowly working my way through NETs hoping to find a few to settle on and currently legend and huntsman are on my short list. My next batch will be Ahlusions BGB and a few others.
I decided to drip these highbrow flavors last night after about two and a half weeks steep, the first 48 caps off and a generous daily shake. Unfortunately the distinction between these flavors was almost non existent, instead all I seemed to get was a strong floral grass flavor that I can only assume is the base. Let me back off of that expression for a second and say that BEHIND that frontal assault I could faintly taste what I think is intended to be the character of these juices. The question is am I being impatient and do these simply need to go back in the drawer for a month or does the base flavor, which I find generally unpleasant, stay up front regardless of steep time.

TKirk - I had the unpleasant experience of vaping some well-steeped Highbrow French Pipe (w/ honey) that I got in a juice lot from the classies a few weeks back. I think it's safe to say that if you're not feeling those juices right now, you likely won't enjoy them in another month. Only thing you can do is put them away and wait it out. In all honesty. I think there is a reason you find very little discussion about the "Highbrowbaccos" in this thread. They don't come across as raw, natural tobacco the way the others do, but rather some odd, mutant interpretation from another planet. :) I've heard enough negative about that line of juices to know that I should stay away, and my experience the other day just helped to confirm it. I'd even go so far as to say that these juices might not even be NET's in line with the true spirit of the thread - Highbrow hasn't been completely clear. To quote the great Vapenstien in his review of Highbrow's Exotic Blend:
Not good enough. If you're going to make tobacco juice, make tobacco juice. Someone who loves tobacco does not want mystery nut. They certainly aren't fooled by it. It's no wonder that everyone is vaping strawberry menthol green tea frapple, or whatever that crap is, if this is what vaping vendors are going to serve up as tobacco.
When I first read that, I knew it was best to stay away... shoulda listened! :laugh: There's MUCH better out there if you're looking for a realistic tobacco experience.

I'm another lover of HBV's tabac de Perique... a very interesting juice with a funk unlike anything else I've vaped. I can only guess that the tobacco was fermented longer than others. GeJ's Natural Perique is also a very nice vape but it doesn't have near the amount of funk... it's almost a completely different type.
When you say "fermented longer", RD, what do you mean? Highbrow's "perique" tobacco is fermented longer than other vendors'? or Perique tobacco is fermented longer than other tobaccos?
 

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Eenie, meenie, minie, mo.. which MOV get's the next go. RY4, Gent, or Pen. Leaning towards Pendragon later today, as that's what I meant to vape yesterday lol.

CT, haven't seen you post in a long time, I was really enjoying your posts. Been busy and just lurking these days? Gonna comment on the El Toros?

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I think CT has been doing some heavy travelling lately and been quite busy. He'll return when he gets some free time. I enjoy CT's posts as well. :)
 

Nick Fantastic

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Nick... does that bottle of HBV French Pipe actually have the word honey on it? If so, it is a custom blend and not a standard one, the standard has cherry and vanilla notes in it... but it is a pretty sweet blend so I wasn't sure if that was the real label or a slight dig...

Gosh, RD. You're putting me to sleep with this stuff! This is probably the 10th time typing it - French Honey Pipe. How it that a "dig"? It's French Pipe (with said original notes of cherry and vanilla) with Honey added. As far as I'm concerned, it might as well just say - "? ? ?" - on the bottle. It's not a tobacco juice in my book, and I don't get any flavor notes that say "golden flue-cured" or "Danish black cavendish." It all comes back to that quote by Vapenstein.


From what I can gather, only one company makes Perique Tobacco and they own all the rights to it so Perique is Perique. How it is extracted and mixed would be the difference.

Nick, love the Vapenstien quote.

You're exactly right, John. I was just trying to make a point :p I feel there is a need to discuss the actual tobaccos types/curing methods in this thread as well. That is really the root of what this thread is about (that, and that Vapenstein quote ;) ). Knowing about all these styles has really helped me learn about what I like, what I don't like and what I should or might like.
 

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Hi folks. Haven't been checking in on this thread much of late. Thought I'd drop a post. I have completed 12 Ahlusion NET samples now thanks to a couple of fine fellows who frequent this thread (did some juice swaps). While there are many Ahlusion enthusiasts, I have to say I am not one of them. It seems vendors have a common flavor base among their NETs that are pervasive throughout their NET lines. At least that is what I have found for the most part. Ahlusion is no different. I'm not sure what it is about their base NET flavor. There is a medicinal or soapy quality about them that just misses the target with me. That said, there were a few of them that weren't too bad, namely Vurley, Smokin' Cherries, and the CA Black tea. I can vape them. The others...not so much. I'm afraid my vape-likes remain with three vendors...HHV, GeJ, and Quicknic. No offense to the A+ crowd. :)
 

johni

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You're exactly right, John. I was just trying to make a point :p I feel there is a need to discuss the actual tobaccos types/curing methods in this thread as well. That is really the root of what this thread is about (that, and that Vapenstein quote ;) ). Knowing about all these styles has really helped me learn about what I like, what I don't like and what I should or might like.
I agree 100%. It is definitely a journey more than a destination although I'm starting to figure out what flavor profiles I might enjoy and some that I don't. I'm really glad you and some others picked up some of my favorite juices. I was a bit bewildered by all the negative posts about a couple of them and look forward to input from you, Jerms, RD, and others.
 

Nick Fantastic

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Hi folks. Haven't been checking in on this thread much of late. Thought I'd drop a post. I have completed 12 Ahlusion NET samples now thanks to a couple of fine fellows who frequent this thread (did some juice swaps). While there are many Ahlusion enthusiasts, I have to say I am not one of them. It seems vendors have a common flavor base among their NETs that are pervasive throughout their NET lines. At least that is what I have found for the most part. Ahlusion is no different. I'm not sure what it is about their base NET flavor. There is a medicinal or soapy quality about them that just misses the target with me. That said, there were a few of them that weren't too bad, namely Vurley, Smokin' Cherries, and the CA Black tea. I can vape them. The others...not so much. I'm afraid my vape-likes remain with three vendors...HHV, GeJ, and Quicknic. No offense to the A+ crowd. :)

Yeah, B. If you're 12-deep and still not catchin' the vibe, I think it's safe to say that Ahlusion isn't for you. No one can say that you didn't try though. ;) That's what it's all about. I, personally, am not a huge fan of the non-aromatic line myself. I still like a few of them once in a while, but they quickly fell out of favor with me upon receiving my first bottles of the Aromatics. :D That's just my preference. We all know how it goes.

I agree 100%. It is definitely a journey more than a destination although I'm starting to figure out what flavor profiles I might enjoy and some that I don't. I'm really glad you and some others picked up some of my favorite juices. I was a bit bewildered by all the negative posts about a couple of them and look forward to input from you, Jerms, RD, and others.

Which (favorites) juices are you speaking of, John. Highbrowbacco's? :laugh: :p Nah, I'm assuming you mean the MOV's, yeah?
 

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Yeah, B. If you're 12-deep and still not catchin' the vibe, I think it's safe to say that Ahlusion isn't for you. No one can say that you didn't try though. ;) That's what it's all about. I, personally, am not a huge fan of the non-aromatic line myself. I still like a few of them once in a while, but they quickly fell out of favor with me upon receiving my first bottles of the Aromatics. :D That's just my preference. We all know how it goes.



Which (favorites) juices are you speaking of, John. Highbrowbacco's? :laugh: :p Nah, I'm assuming you mean the MOV's, yeah?

Yep Nick, a vendor cannot be all things to all people. They just can't. And yes, I sampled a whole lot of their flavors and gave them a fair shot I thought (thanks for the help ;). I know you groove on the Smokin' Cherries. That was one of the better ones I tried so I can see why you like that one. The tea wasn't bad either. It was good enough that I can recommend to our hardcore NET friends to give teas a try. I'll work those over a bit more and see if I acquire more of a taste for them. I don't like giving up too soon. :)
 

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Great posts to read this morning, love the days this thread picks up.

Bronze, thanks for the update on CT. I try to avoid being nosy because life is going on for all of us outside these forums, but I do get curious when a familiar name doesn't show up for a while. Glad to see you checking in too. Also glad at least a couple of those Ahl's worked for ya. At least you gave them an honest try before finding out the vendor isn't quite what works for you, nothing wrong with that.

RD, how old's your NP from GeJ? If you can't age it in months yet, you've yet to experience it's funk potential. For me it stayed subtle and then BOOM.

Thuc, always fun to read your knowledge about taste experience and perceptions.

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Oh yeah, love the Vapenstein quote too. He's a fun dude to read, especially his much older takes on tobacco and vaping.

Hope I hear back from W2V to share their response about "Smoke". I know there's a rule about posting vendor's private correspondence and it wouldn't be fair to publicly state what someone was writing as a personal message. It's no big revelation but if for some reason they prefer not to have it posted I'm sure they'll answer any personal email for the curious.

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rdsok

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Gosh, RD. You're putting me to sleep with this stuff! This is probably the 10th time typing it - French Honey Pipe. How it that a "dig"? It's French Pipe (with said original notes of cherry and vanilla) with Honey added. As far as I'm concerned, it might as well just say - "? ? ?" - on the bottle. It's not a tobacco juice in my book, and I don't get any flavor notes that say "golden flue-cured" or "Danish black cavendish." It all comes back to that quote by Vapenstein.

It was really an honest question, I really wondered, since you'd typed it a couple of times, if the label actually had the word honey on it... Bryan at HBV does make custom mix's and his labels indicate what they are... If the label you have does have the word, fine, if not... then you adding the word was a "dig" of sorts and that is ok also because I do like seeing other peoples opinions on a juice... I was just genuinely curious so I knew which way you going with it, after all, these things don't often come across accurately on a forum... so I asked a direct question.

Sorry for putting you to sleep...


As for how Perique is made... I know it comes only from one place in Saint James Parish, Louisiana... and that it is an anaerobic fermentation of the tobacco... the rest about perhaps the tobacco HBV is extracted from is fermented longer or not... was just a possible guess. Of course your point that it could be the extraction method used is also valid... Look at the differences between HHV's Legend and Serendipity as one example from another company.
 

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Which (favorites) juices are you speaking of, John. Highbrowbacco's? :laugh: :p Nah, I'm assuming you mean the MOV's, yeah?
Yep, MOV. When I first got them, Luce was the only other regular who had written anything. After my initial bewilderment I decided to just be happy I still had the buds left to taste subtle flavors after 37 years of analogs. I smoked longer than most of the guys had been alive when they couldn't pick up these flavors so "I'm Happy"!
 

rdsok

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I've enjoyed the MOV Pendragon a lot... It's now on my rotation list.. I'm going to get their Virginia Flake RY4 and Sunday Morning along with it when I order next from them...

I've also got my eye on a few from MyVapeJuice but haven't settled on exactly which yet. Besides just good tasting juices, which I've found several already... I'm still looking for something that will go with menthol well so I can have it for my primary ADV... probably a non-aromatic blend.
 

Thucydides

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I've lived in MA 42 years and have hated New England 42 years. 8 months of frigid damp darkness. It's worse than Seattle. Never ever ever dry. Miserable climate. Damn, this thread moves faster than a gazelle being chased by a cheetah.

Ouch! Well, I had 5 kids there, so how could I possibly hate it?

Edited: My wife had 5 kids there.
 

Nick Fantastic

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I vaped my 4-1/2-month-old GeJ Perique as a nightcap in honor of the evening, and it was very satisfying. It's been a good two months since I've even tasted it, so I can't really say if it's gone Parliament/Funkadelic on me since the last time. It's funky, but not overly so. It's just a really good, relatively mild vape. The thing is, there has been some talk in the past regarding Perique being "out-of-season". I plan on contacting Nick to discuss it with him, see what he thinks, and possibly get an idea of when to reorder so that we're getting a juice from the premium in-season crop.

I also dripped a quick 2-of-each of Organic #1 and NatPer (Franken-code: Symphonie Fantastique) for old time sake, and that was quite swell as well. These two still play very nice together. Also at 4-1/2 months old, the OG#1 has really changed a lot since day one. The choco-ness was really cutting through last night.



It was really an honest question, I really wondered, since you'd typed it a couple of times, if the label actually had the word honey on it... Bryan at HBV does make custom mix's and his labels indicate what they are... If the label you have does have the word, fine, if not... then you adding the word was a "dig" of sorts and that is ok also because I do like seeing other peoples opinions on a juice... I was just genuinely curious so I knew which way you going with it, after all, these things don't often come across accurately on a forum... so I asked a direct question.
Still a mystery - why would I add the word Honey? I don't even get any honey flavor from it. :unsure:
 
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Jerms

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The following post is all about juice delivery systems. So why post it here? Well, what we use is important to us because we discuss flavor and what works best for us is important. JDS is especially important to us here because the added factor of many NETs being the most damaging. My main reason for posting it here is personal though, JDS has been a huge part of my hobby, and since I'm going to alter such a huge part I desire to post it in the thread that really matters to me. So feel free to skip this off-topic since it will be long, only about my JDS experience, and is mainly stuff I realized many have already discovered for themselves long ago; the benefits of having one delivery system. The story of how I found my own Holy Grail.

I've said it before that I use cartos on the go, mainly with mint and menthol. Just getting that out of the way because that's not going to change, I'm happy with that.

Most of my enjoyment of the hobby is done at home dripping in an atomizer. Instead of saying "disposable" atomizer in this post, I will use the term used for years before RBAs; atomizer, or atty.

I love the atomizer. It can be a pain in the ... but it's been the best option for great flavor and easily switching juice. I've learned to love the things that make them a pain in the ... by accepting it as part of my hobby. The cleaning, the ritual, the constant dripping, the inconsistant QC and the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between 2 otherwise exact same atties. I like getting to know each new atty's strengths and weaknesses. Some atties can be like taming a wild horse, and those I feel proud when I master them. I'm also proud of the atties that lasts me months through proper maintainance and cleaning.

I've rotated atties every few days as part of the cleaning and finding the best atties for each juice. For whatever reason juices seem to mate with a certain atty and perform best with it. It allows me to really give a juice a chance. I accepted early on I will never find a perfect JDS, so switching atty types from 510, 901, and 306 allows certain strengths to come forward while I just accept the weaknesses. It sounds like a lot, and maybe it is, but for most of us drippers it all becomes second nature and routine.

I gave up on the search for the Holy Grail, but may have accidently stumbled into what just might be the closest I'll get to it. I realized this last night, and with that realization came the pain of ditching a huge part of my hobby along with the excitement of greatly simplifying it. It may sound silly, but to me it's a big change. All my drip shields, adaptors, routines, yadda yadda.

So what sparked this? These new juices I've been vaping in my new IGO-S have been fantastic the last couple days. At the end of the night I wanted vape a juice I already know very well, Devil Dog. I've tried it in many JDS, enjoyed it on many different occasions. I know this juice, so was taken aback at how different it tasted. It was richer, fuller, and more amazing than ever. It wasn't me perceiving it different, it really was a lot more complex and better tasting. I think the difference was the new wire I started using.

The 30 gauge is much thicker than the 32, and has less resistance while covering much more area. Lower ohms is needed to the so higher watts can make it more responsive. They talk about this in the RA section here, but I had to experience it to realize how much difference. The first coil, the one I've been using now, was at 1.1 ohm, so I had to use it on my Twist instead of VAMO. At the Twists lowest setting this still forced me to vape at higher watts than what I normally use, which is normally around 8. Last couple days it's been at the 9.5 to 11 watt level. Since the heat is spread out more it doesn't burn the juice and provides more flavor, vapor, and works with shorter vapes.

So almost by accident I discovered something I wasn't expecting, an RBA set-up that I can admit to myself surpasses anything my atties can do with flavor, which I verified with other juices. The taste is no longer about the same, it's better.

My other big issue was form and function. This little IGO-S fills that need for me. It's shorter than a 510 and about the diameter of an eGo. The small size makes it easy to switch juices by dripping a new flavor on top of the old with just a brief blending, a big deal for me and what I loved about atties. I won't say this specific RBA is better than other RBAs cause it's not, it just fills my own personal wants for function. It only holds about 10 drops, a tiny amount in the world of RBAs but a lot for someone who's used atties, and right for me. The draw is what I want. The set-up was really quick and easy with just a small piece of silica and the holes in the posts.

I also lucked out in finding a braided silica that fits my needs imparting no additional flavors and being rugged enough for the dry-burns I've been hitting it with. It doesn't break apart quickly like my last silica.

So all this adds up to having a system that I can use as my only system for at home vaping. I will no longer be able to tell what a certain juice works best on, so if it doesn't work on my new set-up I'll just have to pass on it. A small sacrifice for a lot more simplicity. A lot of people use just one thing that works best for them. It took me a while, but now I have mine. IGO-S, braided silica, 30 gauge A-1 kanthal. I still have half a dozen atties and a couple different RBAs and it may take a while to faze them out, but for the most part I'll be sticking to what is now my Holy Grail.





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