The best advice I could give is when you're testing FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WRITE NOTES. Write as much as you can about the flavoring your testing. The flavor profiles, the "texture", any aftertastes, any pairings you think would work with it, everything. This will help you when you go to make your own recipes, because you'll know which flavors to use in specific situations. This will also speed up your mixing a lot, and increase production output. Also, I use Evernote for all my DIY notes. This is because I can "tag" certain keywords which makes finding flavorings I need a fucking breeze. Say I'm making a Fig, Walnut, Bearclaw or something, and I need something that will bind the flavors together. I just search #binding and a list of flavorings pop up. Then I can narrow it even further by searching #binding #fig #walnut, and maybe one of two will pop up and I can just choose from there, with all the recommended percentages I already wrote down from my testing. I HIGHLY recommend trying this method out.