For anyone still having a hard time understanding what I mean by Classic versus Custom RY4s (despite my previous efforts to explain), try this shorthand:
Classic RY4s are defined by The Three Bs---Bright, Balanced, and Blended.
Bright is the vaping equivalent of the treble range in music. The high end as a flavor experience for the brain. Sparkly, almost effervescent, but hopefully not shrill. Stimulating rather than pulsating. Think birds in flight. Think trumpets or soaring violins. One might even use the more emotional term light-hearted.
Balanced means that all the constituent ingredients have equal or at least roughly equivalent impact in the flavor profile. Strong tobacco, caramel-rich, and vanilla-rich are not Classic flavor profiles. No one flavor stands out.
Blended is both an art and a choice, namely, the use of complementary flavorings that like each other and are mixed in such a way that they all fuse together into unity. The resulting overall flavor tends toward one taste experience for the vaper, rather than distinctly tasting each individual ingredient.
Balance and Blending necessarily work together. You may still recognize the presence of each ingredient, but the individual components work in harmony. They don't scream to get your attention or fight with each other to be king of the hill. Think the Andrews Sisters or Crosby, Stills, and Nash (or, with nuts, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young---I guess that makes Neil Young nuts, LOL). But not Diana Ross and the Supremes. No lead singers, no backup singers. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
By contrast, Custom RY4s are, well, everything else. Custom RY4s have no particular shared characteristics common to all, except that they are not Classic. They are often "deeper" or "darker" in flavor than Classics, but not always. They may use flavorings other than or in addition to the standard trio (tobacco, caramel, vanilla, and sometimes nuts), or use their component flavorings in ways that make a particular element stand out. An RY4 with very distinct flavor components is probably Custom.
Classic RY4s cannot be mistaken for anything else. They are not mere tobacco blends, nor simply sweet dessert juices. They are clearly RY4s. Custom RY4s, on the other hand, sometimes push the flavor envelope so far that the question becomes: Are they RY4s or not? That's always a judgment call, since "objective" criteria are so difficult to define for Custom RY4s.
The Holy Trinity of RY4 flavoring ingredients
Tobaccos vary widely in RY4s. The tobacco in some Classic RY4s is pedestrian and nondescript, but never distracting. Custom RY4 tobacco flavorings are all over the map, from standard to wildly eccentric, and from mild to potent. NETs (natural tobacco extracts) are always Custom, since Classic RY4 was created using synthetic tobacco flavorings.
Caramel is a near universal in all RY4s, except those few that substitute a cotton-candy spun-sugar type flavor for the caramel, but even those tend to provide the taste of caramelized sugar. Caramels may be sweet or savory, rich or lean, more like hard candies. chewy candies, or poured liquid ice-cream toppings. If the caramel is too dominant, however, you've reached the boundary of RY4 Land and may have crossed over into the Empire of Caramel. RY4 without much caramel are exceedingly rare, and usually vanilla-rich (but simply being vanilla-rich doesn't necessarily imply a lack of caramel).
Vanilla is the wild-card mystery ingredient of RY4. Sometimes used liberally to obvious effect, but more often added almost as an afterthought, a kind of background binder for the tobacco and caramel. It is essential, however.
Nut flavorings are optional, as are more outlandish additional ingredients, such as: liqueurs, bitter/sour, maple/molasses, cocoa/chocolate, various fruits, menthol/mint, etc. RY4s may contain nuttiness and still qualify as Classic. That's true also of a sour component to counterbalance sweetness, since Janty---the original, first-ever RY4---uses that sweet-sour counterbalancing). All the other odd flavorings are inherently Custom. Use any of the weirder flavorings, and you end up with a Custom RY4.
