Disclaimer: This E-liquid was provided to me free of charge for the purpose of conducting a review. This fact notwithstanding, I will, as best I'm able, provide an honest, accurate and unbiased assessment of this product. Pertinent portions of this review are quoted from my review of NamberJuice's Moot's Juice. http://vapour-taster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/moots-juice-by-namberjuice.html Quoted passages are in italics.
Caramelised bananas and walnuts atop buttermilk pancakes, with butter and Maple syrup are one of those desserts (or breakfasts) that absolutely delight me. Ye gods, I love it! So, the opportunity to write about this liquid fills me with an excited expectation of revisiting an element of this beloved food. Even if it's a near approximation of the flavours I love, I'll be happy.
Grimmgreen likes banana too. Of the twenty one flavours on offer from NamberJuice http://namberjuice.com/ three of them are variations on banana flavour. Says Nick, "One of the first flavors I tried back in January 2009 when I started vaping was a china (sic) made banana flavor, and I LOVED it. I could not get enough of it. It was blowing my mind that only a few weeks earlier I had stinky, burnt, gross tobacco flavor in my lungs, and now I had this amazing creamy banana flavor satisfying my nicotine cravings. When Amber and myself first started dating, one of the first flavors that she mixed up and gave to me was a menthol / banana juice. I thought it was pretty stellar and vaped the whole bottle away in a few days." http://namberjuice.tumblr.com/
Caramelized Banana is an e-liquid by NamberJuice, the relatively new company set up by pillars of the vaping world, Nick "GrimmGreen" Green and Amber "VapeBabe" Johnson, both YouTube celebrities, reviewers, commentators and all-round nice people. GrimmGreen has been talking about all things vaping since 2009 and from then till now has had approximately three and a half million views of his videos. Here's a link to GrimmGreen's blog: http://www.grimmgreen.com/ and here's a link to his YouTube channel: http://m.youtube.com/user/GrimmGreen VapeBabe has been posting videos to YouTube since 2010 and has also amassed a sizeable following. She also maintains a blog dedicated to seeking out and discussing all things vaping for the female market. In her own words, "...we (women) are out here, we have money, and we are more than willing to throw it at (vendors) if they invest in our interests!" http://www.thevapebabe.com/post/11008147355/hey-everyone-just-getting-this-site-up-and Here's a link to her Youtube channel: http://m.youtube.com/user/TheVapeBabe and a link to her blog: http://www.thevapebabe.com/
NamberJuice currently have a catalog of twenty one flavours, divided into two ranges; Namber Originals and Namesakes, with a third range, Tumbleweed Tobacco coming soon. Their liquids range from confectionary and desserts through to beverages and tobaccos. Each of their liquids are available in a 15ml bottle ($10.00) at nicotine strengths of 0, 6, 12, 18 and 24mg
Caramelized Banana, from the Namber Originals range is described as "Caramel candy mixed with a delicious banana flavor. Sweet and smooth, this juice could easily substitute as a tobacco type flavor... This flavor was inspired by the very first DIY attempt Amber made in 2010. She sent her crisp caramelized banana flavor to Nick via snail mail in the early stages of their relationship, so of course they honored that memory by creating a similar flavor for Namber Juice." http://namberjuice.com/namber-originals/all-flavors/caramelized-bananas.html There are twenty six customer reviews for Caramelized Banana, as of the writing of this review, with an average rating of 4.2/5 stars.
The bottle is a semi-opaque, easily squeezed plastic with an attached plastic dropper insert. The black plastic screw top cap is childproof. When it arrived, the bottle was sealed from head to toe in a seemingly vacuum sealed plastic and I had to use a steak knife to remove it! The design on the label is striking with it's geometric design in red, white and black. The label includes the following information: the name of the liquid, the phrase "The all original" preceding the brand name, the phrase "Quality E-Liquid", nicotine contents in mg, liquid contents in ml, a batch (lot) number, a "born on" date, an ingredients list, a warning that the liquid may contain concentrated flavours and nicotine, a declaration that the liquid contains artificial flavouring, an advisory notice to keep out of reach of children and pets and the NamberJuice address.
The colour of the liquid seems to most closely approximate an Atomic Tangerine Orange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_orange#Atomic_tangerine Looking at the liquid in the bottle, it seems reasonably aqueous but dispersing minuscule bubbles of air throughout with a vigorous shake of the bottle, sees them rising to the top at a very slow pace, suggesting a high viscosity. It's also very lubricious: rubbing a drop of the liquid between the tips of my thumb and forefinger takes almost five minutes before it's absorbed into my skin. At the three minute mark, the liquid became slightly tacky. When I hold the opened bottle below my nose and take a sustained, shallow inhalation, I smell ripe banana.
I'm reviewing Caramelized Banana with an Igo-L on a Poldiac running on a freshly charged 18650 battery. I don't have the means to check the ohms of the coil, but if it helps you to know, there's a four/five coil of 0.2mm (32AWG) Kanthal wire around three strands of 2mm Silica wick.
I fire the device and draw the vapour into my mouth. The back of my throat is closed, so my mouth fills with, and is bathed in sweet vapour. I take a number of short draws without inhaling and with each successive draw the sweetness intensifies. When I finally draw the vapour into my mouth before inhaling, the sweetness is very intense and I experience the broad flavour of caramelised banana. Before too long I've inhaled as much vapour as I can and I follow through with a breath of fresh air to ease it all into my lungs. At this point the flavour of banana caramelised with Demerara sugar is fully realised. The caramel is sweet and unlike some other caramel flavoured e-liquids I've tried recently, there's no saltiness at all. The banana flavour is without doubt that of a cooked banana. As I exhale, the flavours are softened slightly; the caramel begins to give way and the banana dominates through to the aftertaste. There's also a slight metallic tang around my lower, forward teeth and gums.
Like many dessert or fruit oriented e-liquids, I don't experience a throat hit when vaping Caramelized Banana. I do however, experience a significant mounting of pressure at the back of my throat during inhalation. I find that I need to modify my inhalation technique significantly in vaping this juice because the sensation of pressure builds more rapidly than I've previously experienced. Short, shallow inhalations seem to not only benefit the flavour payload, but it helps to avoid the discomfort that comes with inhaling too much vapour. As a consequence of not being able to take sustained inhalations, I found vapour production to be somewhat on the light side.
Caramelized Banana is an unpretentious juice. There doesn't appear to be any secondary or tertiary flavours lurking below the surface, so it's a case of what you see is what you get. It does this very well; the flavour is rich and full bodied and tastes exactly like the foodstuff it mimics. While NamberJuice suggest this could be a worthy substitute for a tobacco flavoured liquid, I personally find it a little too sweet for this to be the case. Nevertheless, I do like it very much and it's something that I'll happily vape with a cup of tea or coffee.
When you eat a banana, the flavour you experience is derived primarily from one particular chemical; Isoamyl Acetate. This chemical is also released as a pheromone by bees when they sting something to attract other bees in the area and provoke them to sting as well. It can be synthesised by catalysing a mixture of Isoamyl Alcohol and Acetic Acid with Sulphuric Acid. Besides it's use as a flavorant it's commonly used as a solvent and was previously used in the aircraft production industry to stiffen and wind-proof exterior fabric surfaces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoamyl_acetate I wonder if you can see where I'm going with this. Unless you're new to e-cigarettes and the liquids we use to fill them, you're most likely familiar with Propylene Glycol. I'm not suggesting that PG is equivalent in structure or origin to Isoamyl Acetate, but it is "generally recognised as safe" for human consumption by the US Food And Drug Administration. "(It's) used as an humectant (E1520), solvent, and preservative in food and for tobacco products... It is also used in pharmaceutical and personal care products. Propylene glycol is a solvent in many pharmaceuticals, including oral, injectable and topical formulations, such as Diazepam and Lorazepam that are insoluble in water, use propylene glycol as a solvent in their clinical, injectable forms." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol Next time somebody mentions "antifreeze" when discussing Propylene Glycol, casually mention Isoamyl Acetate.
N.B. I'm not a scientist by any means. I'm an artist and a writer, so my dear reader, if you're a scientist and you discern flaws in my understanding of the above chemicals, do please leave a comment below and set me straight.
