dripTonic eliquids from Apollo Ecigs

Apollo is a brand I have seen around from time to time - I had always associated them with cig-a-likes and cartos. They are now extending their range and offered to send us in a sample of their Max VG range, dripTonic.

by Dave Junglist
Apr 25, 2015

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I was sent five to try out of the eleven flavours on the site.

American Pie

The description on the site states “You walk in to Grandma's house. Yes, she's baking again. The sweet smell of dense apple pie with a dash of cinnamon and a buttery, flaky crust engulfs your nose.”

Opening the bottle you can smell the clear aroma of Apple Pie - and it’s a good one too! Not a chemical green apple smell but a nice warm, well cooked pie. I used this liquid in my Freemax Starre tank with a 0.3ohm head in it and started off at 45W. The taste is good! Cloud production, as you would expect with a very high VG ratio liquid is good. Cranking the wattage up the flavour becomes more pronounced and with this set up 50W was about right for me. The description mentions cinnamon. At lower wattage this flavour leaves a nice little taste of heat on the tongue, as you push up the power the cinnamon becomes more pronounced. Up past 60W and this was getting a bit too tickly for me but I know cinnamon lovers out there might like to push it a bit more. The apple pie and pastry flavours are good, not overly strong and certainly not weak. A really nice vape!

Fauxstess Cupcakes

“Often imitated but seldom duplicated. A treat you know and love. As you open the packaging a rush of intoxicating fragrances engulf your sense of smell: rich chocolate icing and dense chocolate cake with a smooth creamy filling. One bite turns to two. Before you know it… they're gone.”

This is a dark coloured liquid and the small is superbly chocolatey! I put this one in a dripper (Mini Freakshow) again at 0.3ohm and started off at 45W. The taste is very much like a combination of chocolate icing - sweet and sticky - and the taste of cooked chocolate cake. So yeah, what you would expect of a juice called cupcakes. Nice! I don’t tend to go near chocolate flavours, I much prefer my dairy-based desserts, and I can’t say that this will convert me to being an everyday chocolate chucker but for those of you who like a choccy vape and like to vape at high power then I would recommend giving this a try. It is what it says it is and that’s all that an honest juice can do!

Funky Monkey

“As the sun rises in the misty jungle a monkey travels from tree to tree in search of the perfect fruit combination. Through his travels he finds his favorite flavors: bananas, kiwis and strawberries. As he proceeds to mash them together, he drinks the ambrosia of his labor.”

On opening the bottle you can tell this is a fruity one. The vision of a monkey mashing up the fruit has freaked me out a bit but having had a good sniff I am calm once more. I can pick out the Kiwi, tangy and refreshing and making my taste buds sit up to attention. I get the sweetness of a ripe banana but not the full on heavy banana taste I was expecting. The overly sweet and lush taste of strawberries is there as an aftertaste on the exhale, it makes me want to have try. This is a really nice and refreshing fruit eliquid and I would definitely go for this one again. One of the liquids that got me off cigarettes was a “Very Berry” XO eliquid and I must confess to not being a fruit-seeker since discovering custards but this one has me considering my vaping habits.

Miss Samoa

“As you traverse the Bakery Forest, a small female shaman greets you. Her introduction includes the name, ‘Miss Samoa.’ Handing you one of the treats she is carrying, she invites you to lose yourself in the experience. An explosion engulfs your taste buds: crunchy cookies layered with caramel and chocolate, powdered with coconut.”

I love coconut. Bounty bars, coconut ice, a good chicken korma. Yum! Not as dark as the Fauxstess Cupcakes juice but darker than the other liquids I was sent. On cracking this one open I was pleased to smell the presence of coconut as the overriding aroma from this one. The description states “powdered with coconut” so from the smell I was getting I was hoping for more of a coconut onslaught. In the Freakshow Mini again with this one and on inhale the main flavour component is as the description, mainly the taste of cookies and a tang of extra sweetness. A really good flavour, not as cloying as the chocolate from the cupcake flavour, just a good, wholesome dough-based vape. The coconut really comes through on the exhale, a nice toasted coconut flavour. A more than pleasant combination! I am going to whack this one in the Starre next as could happily vape this one every day.

Red Dawn

“In the heat of battle, deep in the trenches, the sound of World War III echoes. Peering onto the battlefield you know you may not make it back. Suddenly a medic runs up sliding into the trench. Handing you a strange red liquid, the medic tells you that this is the key to the war. The mythical Red Dawn. You crack the bottle open and smell something familiar, and yet foreign. What is it? Perhaps the answer is the question itself. A paradox of flavors that instill courage and the will to go on.”

Okay… Magical mystery juice. Now can’t say that the description would have me leaping for my wallet. I like to know what I am about to spend a tenner on before my synapses spring into auto-buy mode. This just makes me move straight on to the next one. Maybe I shouldn’t be such a cynical old git as the smell from the bottle does the description justice! No, WWIII hasn’t kicked off - although I haven’t checked the news this morning so it could have done. But that would be too much of a coincidence. And if it had kicked off I don’t see that a eliquid would solve things. But I applaud their artistic licence and will crack on with the review. Actually, just checked the news, we’re all good for the minute. What I mean is, that when you open the bottle it is a familiar smell. But I can’t put my finger on what it is. Freaky!

The liquid in this bottle is red. Like Vamp Vape from T-Juice (told you I love my coconut!) this liquid is a lovely shade of red and will look superb in a tank like what you see in them vids by Pauly Meatball’s. The taste though, buggered if I know. It’s not an unpleasant flavour, it’s not even foreign, it’s just a bit, well, different I guess. It’s not menthol. No cooling effect that I can fathom. There is a hint of fruit and then a hint of something else. I can’t say that this is my cup of tea but it is an interesting flavour. If we knew what was in it then it might help it sell as some people have some very odd flavour preferences. Someone told me the other day that custard juices taste like baby sick. Can you believe it? Never tasted baby sick myself so could not comment.

Conclusion

All in all I found these juices to be full of flavour and true to their descriptions. They are very high in VG and getting full flavours in these gloopier liquids doesn’t always come off but I am happy to say that these gave a really good and consistent flavour in use and the flavours do change as you power your device up and down. I will say though that they aren’t the thickest liquids I have seen, comparing the viscosity with some of my home made mixes I would put them in the range of 70VG / 30PG and this may be the reason that the flavours carry so well. This isn’t a criticism at all as it is my preferred mix for higher VG flavours as the flavours carry that much better. They won’t wick in a CE4 though that’s for sure!

The e-liquids are available in 0mg, 3mg, 6mg, and 12mg strengths which is perfect for their intended use in drippers. They can be purchased in 16ml bottles for £9.50 or 30ml for £16.99. They have supplied us with a discount code of 20% though - this brings the cost down to £7.60 for 16ml or £13.59 for 30ml which is good value! The discount code is FUTURE. Especially as they are from the US and some considerable care has clearly gone into their manufacture and production so is pretty much market value in my opinion. You can check out the full range of dripTonic juices on Apollos website.

Dave Junglist

Reviewer at POTV

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Dave Junglist is co-owner of Planet of the Vapes and has been vaping since 2015. He spent his early years with his head in a bass bin and was a very committed and experienced smoker. He had his first cigarette at the age of 13 and just knew it was for him. He did stop briefly with the aid of patches but reverted quickly and became a ‘secret’ smoker, working hard to keep his weak will from the attention of his family. Vaping made an honest man of him and for this he is forever thankful. He has been involved in websites since completing a degree in Environmental Science in the late nineties. At that time there was pretty much no contact with computers but on joining the regular workforce and deciding that the world-wide-web was the future he blagged his first job as a web designer and never looked back. As you would expect from a junglist, Dave likes his beats and is most comfortable when the bass is wobbly.