eJuice Review 344: Strawberry Blackcurrant (The Fifth) by GDR Vape
So we’re on the last of the GDR Vapes “the Fifth” range of eliquids today.
It’s been an interesting journey reviewing this range, I’m finding that as much as I dislike the additional sweeteners and over the top cooling agents, (yeah I know, I mention that a lot!) once I get past those aspects, I’m finding that there are some really tasty flavours in this range.
It’s quite a candy based range, and I can tell that GDR Vapes have spent a lot of time getting them right, which makes me feel a little guilty about some of the ratings that I’ve given them. It is what it is however, and I have to review things as I see them. It’s unfortunate that these great flavours should get lower ratings than they deserve due to their inclusion of sweeteners, but I stand by my ratings, as I’m obligated to let you good folk know what to expect, should you be thinking about purchasing this range.
Enough of my rambling, lets get stuck into it!
Today I’ll be reviewing “Strawberry Blackcurrant” from “the Fifth” range by GDR Vape.
(This eliquid was supplied by the vendor)
The Review:
There have been a few gems in this range. Stand outs are the really sweet “Lemonade Ice block”, an authentic “Strawberry candy heart” flavour, and cleverly mixed “Pineapple jelly candy” eliquid. These flavours have been fantastic, even through the over use of sweeteners and cooling agents.
On the flipside, the first, “Apple Grape” didn’t really agree with me, it didn’t gel, and to me fell a little short on the flavour front. The sweetener didn’t really save it, and the cooling agent certainly didn’t hide the harshness.
Unfortunately, today’s flavour landed as a close second to the “Apple Grape” that I just couldn’t get into. That’s not saying that others won’t like it, I found that it was a bit of a “meh” flavour that I couldn’t get excited about.
“Strawberry Blackcurrant” is a sweet mix of partially realistic and candy strawberries, with an undertone of equally sweet and tart blackcurrant riding throughout this flavour.
Individual Notes
The strawberry in this juice, I believe is a mix of realistic and candy strawberries. It changes a little during the vape, and shows a different strawberry at different times. The realistic strawberry is a little tart, with a slight earthy tone to it, while the candy strawberry is just that, very much like a sweet and hard candy strawberry. Very sugary and a little like a boiled sweet.
The blackcurrant isn’t too noticeable, instead it falls in behind the strawberry, as more of a background note, appearing every so often just for appearance’s sake, providing a little extra tartness, and an extra note that neither benefits the strawberry nor is in detriment to it.
The usual additional sweetener and cooling agents are also in this flavour.
Inhale & Exhale
The inhale is mostly strawberry, I pick up the realistic strawberry initially before a little sweetness kicks in and it becomes quite sugary taking on a hard candy tone.
On the exhale the candy strawberry continues and intensifies as a little bit of blackcurrant floats through the mix, wavering a little, and appearing and then disappearing a few times during the exhale, almost as though it is really trying to make it’s presence known, but falling short of becoming a full flavour note.
As the exhale continues, the strawberry and blackcurrant hard candy feel prevails as the sweetener takes hold and drives the vape home as a really sweet and chilled finish.
Final thoughts
This one is not a terrible flavour, but also at the same time, is not a flavour that I could get really excited about. Many of the other liquids in this range could redeem themselves of the additional sweetener, by being tasty flavours in their own right, but this one has disappointed me a little. I don’t know whether the mix is wrong, or the concentrates used just didn’t gel, but I felt a little underwhelmed by this one.
All in all this range has been quite interesting, I know that I’ve been banging on about sweeteners and over done cooling agents, and you’re all probably sick and tired of hearing it by now, but I genuinely think that if these flavours had those additives toned down a little, these might be really good juices. You could almost treat these as doublers, and mix them down 50/50 with VG and end up with quite a good vape.
Take from that, what you will.
Bottom line… Great flavours all in all, when they’re not destroying your wicks and coils. If you don’t care about that and rewick a few times per day already, these might be right up your alley. If you’re using premade coils in a starter kit, I’d definitely keep away from them however.
Where to Buy:
GDR vape have their own website, I won’t link you to it though, as I have some real concerns about this range, and my moral compass tells me to not make it easy for people to purchase.
Colour:
Red (Yep this has food colouring)
Aroma:
Strawberry
Coil and wick damage:
This will undoubtedly destroy your wicks and gunk your coils within hours. Not the worst out of this set, but not the best either!
PG/VG Ratio:
This is supposed to be 70%vg/30%pg but instead has the viscosity of water. Something isn’t right here!
Texture:
Sweet realistic fruits
Steeping:
Steeping not necessary with this one
Presentation:
Fantastic presentation. This is actually one thing they have gotten right with this liquid. I received 60ml chubby gorilla bottles with childproof caps. The labels are colourful, with all of the information you might need except for the pg/vg ratio. (although that is a pretty big thing to miss!)
Caveat Emptor: These eliquids all contain food coloring also.
Test rigs:
Haku with slam cap running a single 0.18 AK coil from “Bombers Coils” on a mech mod.
I haven’t tested in anything else, as changing wicks in this 4 times per day is enough mucking about for me.
Rating overview
 by GDR Vape){kind=link}
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