Five Valleys Vape Juice
This time we take a look at Five Valleys Vape Juice which have been kindly provided by Jack Rabbit Vapes. We have a new reviewer on board too so brace yourselves for a wild ride!
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by Pugs
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Welcome my fine and fabulous fluff throwing steam bunnies, back again with….wait…I’ve never actually been here before have I? Hmm….I clearly need a new introduction….
‘Tis I back again for the first time ever …..man….. that doesn’t work AT ALL….
*sigh*
Welcome…to my first ever review…..here….not my first actual review, that would be a lie…just my first review for the other part of POTV…..the actual review bit….the bit that I don’t normally post my reviews in….
Omg WTF am I talking about…..
HEY!.....it’s not like I invited myself here, jeeez…..I’ll just crack on then yeah…before I get in trouble with my no doubt bemused new team colleagues….
Some questions should never be answered….Shall we……
Okay so, being the consummate professional that I indeed.. am (ahem)…I do like to be given a challenge. Normally…these challenges are set by me over at Steampugs, however, today I am doing a bit of moonlighting for the powers that be over here at POTV. And my challenge?....To be whipped like the bitch I am by the tyrannical overlord of a different forum… whilst being threatened with ‘having my testicles nailed to the back of a moving car’ if I didn’t review this particular brand of e-liquids… of which...I know very little about, consisting of some flavours that I…..never vape….and produced by a company that share very little about themselves…anywhere.
So…
As tempting as the offer is to have my gentleman potatoes stretched beyond their physical limits…. I mean, I would normally pay for such pleasures… I shall endeavour to give you my thoughts and opinions on this range of ice-cream and ice-lolly, 70/30, 50ml short fills by Five Valleys Vape Juice, a company being touted by e-liquid marketing and manufacturing experts Dispergo. This should be interesting…..or not…time will tell..
The Flavours
- Nailsorth – Raspberry & Bubblegum Ice-cream
- Slad – Apple Cider Ice-lolly
- Chalford – Grape & Blackcurrant Ice-lolly
- Painswick – Lemon & Pistachio Ice-cream
- Ruscombe – Butterscotch & Salted Caramel Ice-cream
Nailsworth
Okay, now this was one of the flavour combinations that not only have I never vaped before, but even singularly these two flavours rarely star in any of my own mixes, so I was sceptical to say the least. But…as we all know, taste is in the eye of the beholder….or something…(?) and whatever that saying means, if anything, I was more than willing to throw caution to the wind and abandon the years of honing my own personal…and may I say….eclectic flavour profile, to see what in the holy shit balls….this combination of flavours were all about…and I was utterly surprised by the result.
On the inhale Nailsworth is intensely fruity. The bubblegum making its presence well and truly known, but seconds later the raspberry gate-crashes your taste buds, manhandles the bubblegum and drags it on the dance floor as the two of them throw down some serious shapes on your tongue before exhaling, leaving your oral nightclub coated in a sweet, fruity residue….
A very well balanced, full-flavoured liquid for candy fruit lovers, I was truly surprised at just how much I enjoyed this flavour….almost as much…as I was surprised that someone asked me to review it….
Slad
Apple cider is a flavour which I have played with a fair bit in the past, with genuinely disastrous results; I’d even go as far as to say that I have probably dumped more liquids containing apple cider…than any other flavour concentrate that I own, I genuinely hate apple cider for this reason, in fact, when I opened this package of liquids and read the labels, I instantly threw this one across the room rendering my youngest child barely conscious as I muttered under my breath..
”See…no good comes from apple cider”
However….after trying all the flavours in the package and making mental notes as I went along….I felt a slight pang of guilt for this lonely, blood stained bottle in the corner of the room….”FINE”…I said, as I resigned myself to the fact that in order to complete this arduous task the dark dictator has set upon me…I would indeed…have to try it.
I steadied myself as I placed a plastic bucket between my legs….just in case…and soaked my clean cotton with the offending flavour…and as it turns out, the first thing I learned was that I actually…have zero skill in mixing apple cider. Because the moment I drew this vapour in, all I got was a sweet fresh apple that I don’t mind admitting……was truly delicious, and just as I was enjoying this rich succulent fruit utopia, I ran out of ‘in’….and therefore succumbed to the ‘out’….which left a very welcome…if ever so slight…cold tingle at the back of my throat…”Ahh..that’ll be the ice lolly effect…nice” I thought. And then, just as I was feeling good about the whole ordeal, I took in my next normal breath and holy shit it was like being mouth raped by Mr Freeze himself…..”Jesus Christ!” ……..it was surprisingly awesome….but my word, they weren’t shy with the Koolada, or Polar Ice, or whatever they used.
A very rich, authentic, crisp apple, slightly sweet with a cold snap that really bites you on your second breath….big fan, a clever mix which takes you by surprise and grabs you by the short and curlies immediately afterwards.
Chalford
Now compared to the dramatics of the first two, the promise of grape & backcurrant was quite a welcome respite, not a particularly worrying combination yet…again…something I have never tried before…nor mixed myself. Contrary to popular belief…I’m just not that..’fruity’….yet the added extra ‘tease’ of ‘ice-lolly’ on the label led me to believe that I was again in for a down right throat raping. But this was not the case, it would seem that the ‘ice’ in the Slad flavour was in fact Five Valleys’ interpretation of fizzy cider, and not their interpretation of an ice-lolly, because it is nowhere near as strong in this mix…it’s still there, but at a slightly more ‘friendly’ level.
On the inhale you get a very sweet blackcurrant, but not a traditional blackcurrant. The grape really gives it a lift away from the acidic bitterness you can sometimes get, and lends itself to a softer, sweeter, bolder fruitiness. Yet on the exhale, the blackcurrant almost turns into a Ribena note. It’s a very sweet mix for sure, but well balanced and would be very well received on a nice summer’s day, along with several bottles of red….and maybe a kebab. (shrugs)
Painswick
The first of the last two of the five (what?)…..was one that I was quite looking forward to. I have a strange affiliation with anything that shouldn’t be…a thing, “lemon and pistachio??.....are they f&*king crazy?? I mean, I have genuinely discovered some of my finer concoctions by being drunk whilst mixing, and throwing things together that would more than likely end up down the sink 4 weeks later. Custard popcorn is never out of my rotation, and I don’t even remember mixing that one the first time I did, however….this idea which has more potential to be downright weird…turns out to be…not so much.
On the inhale you get the full-on lemon treatment. My other half thought this a little on the ‘household cleaner’ side, but I disagreed - mainly because it was her that said it, but also because I kinda liked the slight difference that this version of pistachio added to it….I say ‘this version’….because I didn’t really ‘get’ the pistachio, it didn’t taste nutty at all to me, if anything it was more ….I dunno…cookie?....But whatever flavour they used, it certainly wasn’t unwelcome, and the added ‘ice-cream’ you get on the exhale makes this a true fruit dessert lover’s dream as the cream gives you that dairy mouth feel afterwards. It’s not heavy like vanilla bean ice-cream, in fact it’s barely there at all - just enough to bring the balance away from the prominent lemon you get at the start…another cleverly put together mix which shouldn’t work…but does….yet may not have done if the intended flavour was authentic.
Ruscombe
I’d genuinely like to know the reasons for these names. I’ve got to be honest here…I mean wtf does ‘Ruscombe’ mean?......Regardless, THIS was the one that promised to be so far up my palatable street, that it could possibly threaten to move in and become one of those annoying neighbours that you just can’t get rid of, taking root in my daily rotation and grinding on my every nerve as I try in vain to replicate it. Butterscotch and salted caramel... this could genuinely have been made just for me.
Now, before I start to try and explain the experience I personally had with this liquid, I have to tell you that my lovely and very beautiful ‘second opinion’ lying next to me on the bed as I tested these liquids….described this flavour in many, many words…ranging from ‘disgusting’…to ‘stale vomit’….to the very descriptive “like when you burn milk in a saucepan’…..and everything in between…..
Stay with me…it gets much weirder..
Because my experience was one where I literally tanked half the bottle, before I came to the astounding quandary…”does this actually remind me of grilled cheese??”.
Hey….I said weirder..
I don’t mean that this mix tasted like cheese. I love cheese, In fact I live for the stuff, but in an e-liquid?...I don’t think that would be pleasant. However, you know when you make cheese on toast and you grill it long enough for the cheese to go brown on the top?....Well this …oddly…reminded me of that, but without the cheese flavour? And sweet?....Weirdest thing ever. What’s even weirder….is that I really…REALLY …liked it, so much so, that I will more than likely be buying this juice again. I actually don’t get any butterscotch from it at all, and certainly no salted caramel, but maybe the ‘salt’ side of this, coupled with the caramelised burnt sugar you get from certain caramels….are the things that remind me of a salty burned dairy taste which is really sweet, and has a full bodied warm buttery mouth feel. It’s more than likely the ice-cream they use that pushes the dairy on the exhale, but the inhale?....Grilled milk toffee…I don’t think there’s anything I can…or indeed should…add to that.
Conclusion
All in all, I was genuinely happy with all of these liquids, whoever the mixologist’s are they certainly know their trade, and have put the wrench-work into balancing these flavours together. They feel and taste like high end, good quality ingredients…if…a little off on their authenticity on one or two, and I would have liked more of an ice-cream ‘punch’ truth be told. The fact they are made here in the UK…Stroud to be exact…also adds a little patriotism to the mix for me too…which I love.
Dispergo have done a great job on the retail presence side of things too, nice bottles and well-designed labels. I definitely recommend the whole range from Five Valleys, a job well done I’d say.
Price
At time of writing I could only actually find one online retailer who sold them, funnily enough from Stroud too! For a 50ml short-fill Cotswold Vapours have them at £15 a pop here..
But if you’re a business you can of course buy them wholesale from Jack Rabbit Vapes themselves for roughly a third of that here
Many thanks to Jack Rabbit Vapes for sending these for review!
Pugs
Reviewer at POTVHe came third in the 2018 Ecigclick awards for his unique and dubious approach to vape reviews.... although you'd never know it because he never ever mentions it...to anyone...ever...more than 6 or 7 times a day anyway.He predominantly vapes high power & low ohms and loves nothing more than a 30mm bottom airflow RDA on a lipo powered PWM mod, he mixes his own liquids, makes his own coils and finds talking about himself in the third person really uncomfortable....
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