Cold Vanilla Cola quest(HS Blue Cola recipe)

[µDavid]

Hello.

I have ever since I begun vaping been wishing for a cola flavour, and when I ordered a lot of other flavours the vendor did give me 100ml FA Cola for free!
I think FA Cola taste quite good but it is very sharp or harsh and hard to work with, my mixes with FA Cola never turned out in any good way.

Then I tried INW Cola which I first thought to be awesome, but after having 2,5% INW Cola steeped for 2 weeks I was very disappointed because besides the very nice cola flavour it also have another bi-flavour that takes away any joy of vaping it, although I know for a fact that it can be masked or managed in some way(another story).

I also have tried two of the TFA cola flavours, can't recall which right now but I didn't really like them.

Then I found my answer, and it is Hangsen Blue Cola.
It isn't really cola as in Coca-Cola but is is the flavour of a Cola popsicle which have two wooden sticks in it that you can break apart into two separate popsicles(found in Sweden a long time ago, something like +15 years ago, but I would imagine that it originated in the US), in any case HS Blue Cola is very easy to work with in my experience and my first recipe meant to emphasize the cola is this:

• Cold Cola:
  7% HS Blue Cola
  2% TFA Sweetener
  1% WS-23(30% solution)

Which I think is just great if that cola flavour is what you want, but admittedly it becomes quite boring.
So my next idea is to use this to create a vanilla cola recipe and I have in this finally found a real application for Vanillin(did you know that if you are drinking ordinary Coca-Cola and feel you wish you had Vanilla Cola, all you need to do is to add a few drops of 10% Vanillin solution and viola! you have Vanilla Coca-Cola, that is all Vanilla Coca-Cola is, Coca-Cola + Vanillin, I am at least not capable of telling the difference between a glass of Vanilla Coca-Cola and a glass of ordinary Coca-Cola with the right amount of Vanillin added):

• Cold Vanilla Cola:
  7% HS Blue Cola
  3% Vanillin(10% vanillin crystals dissolved in 90% PG)
  1% WS-23(30% solution)

By the way I have never liked Koolada but WS-23 is just great because it really have no flavour at all which I would argue isn't exactly true concerning the usual Koolada which alters the flavour of mixes(unless I'm mistaken the usual Koolada is WS-3).
That Cold Vanilla Cola is pretty neat and is a shake and vape recipe, but I still want more vanilla, yesterday I mixed this:

• Cold Vanilla Cola 2:
  7% HS Blue Cola
  3% Vanillin(10% vanillin crystals dissolved in 90% PG)
  3% CAP French Vanilla
  2% OOO Vanilla Ice Cream Blend V2
  1% WS-23(30% solution)

But the jury is still out on that one, the vanillas require steeping before I could know if it turned out good or not, but the idea here was to create something that was more like a vanilla vape with a bold cola flavour whilst the vanilla was still the main flavour, come to think of it I probably should have decreased the HS Blue Cola...
And the OOO Vanilla Ice Cream Blend V2 came in as a theory that cream would be good here and that one often taste to me like real ice cream and who would argue against a vape that really tastes like cola, vanilla ice-cream and a little extra vanilla? Not many I bet.

Vanillin is quite sweet and 5% made it all sickly sweet to me, I realize that I have picked up jet another quest for a particular flavour, vanilla-cola, boy this will just go on and on, and on and on...

So this is a thread with which I wanted to tell you what I think about cola flavours, HS Blue Cola in particular obviously. But I also want your input on this Cold Vanilla Cola recipe, and for that matter any other flavour combinations you like/think would be good which includes cola?
Preferably the HS Blue Cola kind of cola(but generally any cola flavour, the question isn't meant to apply to particular flavour concentrates but rather general flavour combos).

But if you have anything to say about any cola flavours you like or have discovered how to work with I would be happy to read anything you have to say, particularly about any recipes that contains INW or FA Cola that you think is good. I really don't understand what it is with FA Cola that I am so very unhappy about but something isn't right for me with that one.

Am I alone in experiencing that weird bi-flavour of INW Cola?
If I'm not, do you know how to mask it?

Regards

 

[jambi]

Thanks for this very detailed Cola extravaganza. I tried some decent colas when I was vaping store-bought, but could never duplicate them with FA Cola. I agree with you that it's harsh and finicky to work with, though others here will vehemently disagree. The FA also has a citrus element I'm not fond of. It'll be awhile before I can get my hands on some HS Blue, but when I do I've got your recipes stored in my calc.

I think Cola vapes are challenging simply because the real stuff is so familiar to us, so bold in flavor, and soooooo sweeeeet. Also, we associate those flavors with carbonation that is all but impossible to replicate in vapor form. We end up with cola syrup and aren't satisfied, no matter how accurate it may be. I also agree that Koolada doesn't really get to carbonation. I personally can't stand the stuff, and I'm very sensitive to its presence in juice. I've had better results using TFA Champagne, but still Not Quite There.

Our expectations for a vape version of Cola perhaps exceed what vapor is capable of, but it looks like you're chipping away at it. Thanks!

 

[µDavid]

Just to clarify, the Koolada(or as I much more prefer WS-23(30% solution)) is not meant to replicate any kind of presence of carbon dioxide, I have tried with TFA Champagne to replicate that carbonation effect but I really don't like the flavour of it.
Why I use WS-23 is to replicate a chilled feel as if to illustrate the cold temperature of a cola popsicle or a glass of cola with ice-cubes.

Your point about missing and can't replicating the carbonation is something I agree with, that may be one of the reasons why I really like HS Blue Cola. Because the form of which I have experienced that flavour in the past have been as a ice popsicle which lacks any carbon dioxide what so ever.

I also want to add that I have found a recipe I like much better than the one with vanillin I already posted, that one with vanillin I thought was quite nice but I will probably never mix that again as I think the following recipe is a much better fit for that flavour:

• Cold Kola:
  7% HS Blue Cola
  2-4% Ethyl Maltol(10%)
  1,25% WS-23
  0,5-1% TFA Caramel(Original)

It is as if HS Blue Cola doesn't really see eye to eye with vanilla flavours while it and caramel is a perfect match. The Caramel and it's burnt sugar taste is IMO a very good match and it is rare for me to enjoy a recipe as much as I enjoy this one, but as can be seen in the recipe I haven't really nailed down the exact percentages of some of the ingredients. But I imagine that anyone who would try this recipe would have there own opinion on what should be what.

 

[µDavid]

WS-23 have always been(in my mind) meant to give it a cool feel but having that cool feel does perhaps take your mind of the fact that there are no carbon dioxide effect.

If you have tried Koolada and didn't like it I would still suggest that you try WS-23 instead, unless it is that cooling effect that you dislike. Koolada was one of the first flavours I bought when I started vaping but I have only used it once or twice and haven't at all been happy with it. But I tried WS-23 and was very happy with it, as I understand it WS-23 and Koolada is almost the same thing, Koolada being WS-3 and I really don't know what the difference between WS-3 and WS-23 is but for me it is quite a lot of difference between them.

 

[µDavid]

I just wanted to post my two final cold kola recipe's:

Coola:
7% HS Blue Cola
2,5% EM(10%)
2% TFA Caramel(Original)
1,5% WS-23

Kalippo:
8% HS Blue Cola
2,5% EM(10%)
2% TFA Caramel(original)
1% FA Caramel
1,5% WS-23

Please note that the EM changes things, as a shake-and-vape I like the EM, but it ruins the juice in about a week, while the non-EM version needs some time to get nice but it remains sharper.