Recommend Vanilla flavoring?

[snkrumble]

Looking for some recommendations (get lost in the sea of flavorings here lol) for some vanilla's. I prefer a bolder vanilla not super sweet ones. Got some vanilla shisha from inawera and that was amazing. Just looking for some recommendations to start with instead of ordering like 99383737843 vanilla flavorings. Thank you

 

[Cool_Breeze]

I haven't used it in a while, but my recollection is that FlavourArt Vanilla Bourbon is exceptional. I have a fresh bottle that I'll open soon.

 

[BrotherBob]

There seems to be two at the moment (if price is a good indicator) with the best reviews:
Holy Vanilla, DIY Flavor Shack ( may have been around longer than VO)
Vanilla Overlord, Gremlin DIY

 

[tazzle]

Not sure if you are looking for a mixer or a stand-alone, but one I just mixed up today, Mom and Pop's "French Lace," is already quite nice as a single flavor mix, even before steeping, and seems like a very good one for blending with other flavors as well. It's not overly sweet, and seems to have a slight wafer flavor in addition to the vanilla. Here's the page for the e liquid, not the concentrate, that I link just so you can read the description and reviews (though it looks like they stopped updating the reviews a few years ago!). The ordering page for all the concentrates is here. (EU and UK people, I got mine from Chefs Flavours.)

Mom and Pop recommend 20% for all their concentrates, but the users I found around the internet suggest 8-12% for this one. I tried it at 10%, which seems very good to me. The image that they have for the e liquid on the site doesn't seem to reflect the flavor I'm getting so far. The one I'm seeing on most of the European sites seems much closer:

Anyway, I have a BIG BIG soft spot in my vaper's heart for anything that's tasty as a Shake and Vape, and this one is already impressing me quite a lot! I really like that it's not a treacly sweet dessert flavor and very vapable for extended periods (so far! if that changes with steeping, I'll just make small batches, probably).

Because it might matter for other folks deciding for themselves what percentage to use, I mixed mine at 10% with 50/50 pg/vg, 3mg nic. I've also only tried it so far on a Kayfun Mini 3, 1.5 ohms, 12 W.

 

[Str8vision]

There seems to be two at the moment (if price is a good indicator) with the best reviews:
Holy Vanilla, DIY Flavor Shack ( may have been around longer than VO)
Vanilla Overlord, Gremlin DIY

+1 on both recommendations. Holy Vanilla is a straight vanilla like the vanilla extract used for baking, one of my all time favorites for mixes. Vanilla Overload is more of a french vanilla (buttery) quite exceptional.

 

[go_player]

I'm very unimpressed with the Vanilla flavorings I have, including INW Shisha Vanilla. I like to cook and bake, and I use real vanilla beans pretty frequently. They're expensive, but... real vanilla has a wonderful complex flavor that straight vanillin just can't reproduce.

The only Vanilla I've tasted in juice that I thought really good was in a Virgin Vapors bottle. They use Medicine Flower concentrates. I have quite a few MF flavors from ecigexpress, and they are head and shoulders above all other flavors, IMHO, but difficult to work with. Unfortunately, I was late enough to the party that ecigexpress was out of the MF Vanilla when I ordered. And, unfortunately, MF sells it in underweight 15 mill bottles, or $22.00 each plus shipping... that said, if you want a real vanilla and are willing to pay for it I think they might be the best option. I'm about to break down and spend the money to get a couple of the MF flavors I am missing, and Vanilla is at the top of my list.

Failing that, I have heard good things about the DIYFS Holy Vanilla. Unfortunately it is also a bit expensive to order, as you have to get it from them these days (at least in the States) and their shipping is not cheap for a single bottle...

 

[jambi]

Ranked in order of most to least favorite...

1. Nude Nicotine Patchouli Vanilla
2. FA Vanilla Tahity(sic)
3. FA Vanilla Classic (Madagascar)
4. INW Vanilla Classic
5. INW Vanilla Shisha

 

[dannyv45]

What happen to Caps vanilla custard. Wasn't that once up there with the top vanillas? I know it's a bit over the top sweet but still....

 

[go_player]

What happen to Caps vanilla custard. Wasn't that once up there with the top vanillas? I know it's a bit over the top sweet but still....

It might be that people aren't considering it here because it brings so much more in than just Vanilla. It's a perfectly fine Vanilla, as far as artificial Vanillas go, but the rich eggy notes limit it to uses where you wnt that (and are its primary appeal, IMHO.) But it is indeed, for an artificial Vanilla, a good one where it fits.

I'd also put in a good word for FA Custard. I get some weird off-notes in CAP VCV1 (this is true for a lot of CAP flavors, for me, and apparently for a number of other people.) Steeping helps, and a _really_ long steep might help more (I have a bottle of VCV1 that I intend to sample once a week for 6 months to find out,) but I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. FA custard, OTOH, is not unpleasant to me even right after mixing, though it does require a steep to really come out. It's not a replacement for the CAP custard though- it is much less eggy, and has a pretty noticeable lemon to it (which I like a lot, when it fits.) It's great when you want a bit of Vanilla and custard without the weight of CAP. When you want weight you need to supplement it with other creams/custards. Speaking of which, I'll also put in a good word for FA Vienna Cream.

I got in some FLV Vanilla Custard a little while ago, and was really looking forward to trying it. I've heard great things about it, and I've had pretty good luck with FLV so far, so I'm kind of hoping it will fill in the missing spot in my custard repertoire (especially if I get the MF Vanilla to supplement it with a more complex and rounded Vanilla.) Unfortunately, my cat was diagnosed with a rather advanced intestinal cancer on the day my vape mail arrived. I've been a bit topsy-turvy dealing with that (yeah, I am one of those people who is more attached to his cats than is entirely rational, I'm afraid) and most of my mixing since then has been fast and utilitarian, just to keep myself stocked up. I am planning on taking some time this weekend to mix samples of my new flavors, and see if they are the ticket for a recipe I've been working on, so fingers crossed on the FLV Vanilla Custard .

 

[tazzle]

Thanks for that info on FA Custard, @go_player. I recently came across a recipe I'm interested in, but balked a bit at buying FA Custard for it, since I have so many custards already. Your explanation helped me understand "why this one?". Do you have any thoughts on FA Custard Pi, btw? (yes, yet another in my extremely popular continuing series: "Every Single Recipe Asks For A Different Custard, And Even If I Have 12 Custards, I Never Have The Right Custard For The Recipe I'm Looking At Right Now.")

So sorry to hear about your kitteh, and wishing you both the very best. We have a beloved pet in our home and hearts as well (that we are also more attached to than is entirely rational), and she is getting along in years now, and we dread the inevitable. Much love to you.

 

[dannyv45]

Unfortunately, my cat was diagnosed with a rather advanced intestinal cancer on the day my vape mail arrived. I've been a bit topsy-turvy dealing with that (yeah, I am one of those people who is more attached to his cats than is entirely rational, I'm afraid) and most of my mixing since then has been fast and utilitarian, just to keep myself stocked up. I am planning on taking some time this weekend to mix samples of my new flavors, and see if they are the ticket for a recipe I've been working on, so fingers crossed on the FLV Vanilla Custard .

I'm so sorry about your cat. As a fellow pet lover and former breeder of golden retrievers I know how this type of news can hurt I've been through it myself. My prayers are with you.

 

[go_player]

Thanks for that info on FA Custard, @go_player. I recently came across a recipe I'm interested in, but balked a bit at buying FA Custard for it, since I have so many custards already. Your explanation helped me understand "why this one?". Do you have any thoughts on FA Custard Pi, btw? (yes, yet another in my extremely popular continuing series: "Every Single Recipe Asks For A Different Custard, And Even If I Have 12 Custards, I Never Have The Right Custard For The Recipe I'm Looking At Right Now.")

I don't have the Custard Pi, so I'm afraid I can't be of too much help there. The very few descriptions of it I've seen seem intriguing though. I've incurred some kind of large unexpected expenses recently (and if I'm honest, I already probably have more flavors than is entirely sensible,) but I might have to grab a bottle soon and see what I think. If I understand their lines correctly it is a blend of their regular custard and some other flavorings, so I haven't considered it a must-have, but the very little I've seen people say about it makes it sound promising.

And I def hear you on the many variants of flavors thing... I'll get interested in a profile and order a lot of small sizes in that profile from different vendors. I'm afraid I have a fair number of flavors I will not use up before they get old. But I've come to think of mixing as a bit of a hobby, and all things considered it is not a terribly expensive one even if I am a bit more wasteful than is entirely necessary. Luckily I figured out very early that ordering anything other than small bottles the first time you get a flavor is not a good idea, so when I wind up not using flavors they're in 5-13 mill sizes.

So sorry to hear about your kitteh, and wishing you both the very best. We have a beloved pet in our home and hearts as well (that we are also more attached to than is entirely rational), and she is getting along in years now, and we dread the inevitable. Much love to you.

I'm so sorry about your cat. As a fellow pet lover and former breeder of golden retrievers I know how this type of news can hurt I've been through it myself. My prayers are with you.

Thanks for the kind words and thoughts. I had some ultrasounds taken and it doesn't look like there's anything curative on the table at this point, so I'm just thinking about her quality of life now. I had an old friend here over the weekend, and we spent a lot of yesterday sitting on my patio. She's an indoor cat, but I have a harness for her, so we brought her out and she spent a lot of the afternoon alternating laps to snooze on. She's a very affectionate cat. I think she had a nice day, and I'm hoping we can have a few more of those.

 

[spaceballsrules]

What happen to Caps vanilla custard. Wasn't that once up there with the top vanillas? I know it's a bit over the top sweet but still....

Vaping the V2 version right now and it is glorious! Tastes just like Creme Brulee from Nicoticket RIP.
Mixed at 10% flavor, 6 mg, 70/30 pg/vg.