Welcome to Cafe Racer
Welcome to Cafe Racer
Cafe Racer is committed to only selling its products to people of legal smoking age. Please Verify your age to continue.
Cafe Racer is committed to only selling its products to people of legal smoking age. Please Verify your age to continue.
As summer rolls by, vapers everywhere want the taste of something more refreshing, and that's what we have for you here. These six e-liquid flavors are just what you need to get you through the summer heat.
Image via SubOhm.com
An award-winning e-liquid, Cool Bastard is as it sounds—chilled quite nicely. It has a rich and creamy flavor with a mint finish that's just right, making it perfect for those who wish for a cool menthol tobacco experience that's not too overpowering.
It can be a bit finicky when it comes to temperature. If you don't want too much cream, you wouldn't want to use it cold. However, too high a temperature may cause the mint to fade. Have this at the right temperature and wattage and you're in for a good experience. It's creamy tobacco that doesn't dry the throat and ends with a mint touch that compliments all the other flavors.
Another flavor with an icy cool finish, this one is all about that berry taste. If you like strawberry or raspberry with a hint of mint, then Berry Ice is certainly your choice of liquid. The menthol aftertaste doesn't overpower the berry flavor, so you should find this mix of fruit and mint to be just right if you like it sweet and cool at the same time.
This is best for those who are okay with the Cool Bastard but want something fruitier. It's the classic fruity sweetness and tartness you'd expect from berries, but with a hit of coolness at the end.
With hints of blueberry, vanilla custard, and green tea undertones to go with its main note of crisp peach, this blend is a crowd pleaser. It's full of flavor without being too strong as to become tiresome, so you can vape this all day long easily.
The peach comes in, then the blueberry comes up at the throat hit and exhale. The aftertaste soon follows in a smooth and subtle delivery. This is also great for big cloud enthusiasts who like them thick. Peach Guzzi seems like a complete package for many.
Salty Bastard Kit including Salty Bastard Tobacco Ice
The name is a bit of a mouthful, and the flavor is too. The Salty Bastard Tobacco Ice Nicotine Salt is for those who want to ramp their vaping up a bit more. It's much like the Cool Bastard, with just as much mint in the back, but it also gives you those nicotine salts for a more sophisticated flavor. It's sweet, savory, and definitely interesting.
Take note that it's not meant for subohm vaping due to its high nicotine content. It should give you a nice tobacco taste with a slight menthol kick in the finish.
For something a bit different, this one can be a bit divisive. While the Berry Ice does have strawberry flavor in it, this one is even heavier on the strawberry. If you're really into strawberry flavors, then the Strawberry Creamsicle should be right for you.
It's an amalgamation of strawberry, vanilla, and cream that blend together smoothly as you draw and lingers as it hits the throat, then fade slowly after the exhale. It's not too sweet, yet does have that familiar milky fruit cereal strawberry taste that can take you back to your childhood.
Another Salty Bastard Nic Salt flavor for those who are more into citrus. This one is a blend of natural tangerines and oranges that reminds many people of orange tic tacs.
As with the Salty Bastard Tobacco Ice, this one also is not meant for sub-ohm setups. If you're looking for a liquid that takes you from sub-ohm to MTL pod, then this should fit the bill. The Salty Bastard Tangerine isn't too sweet but delivers the citrus fruit notes in spades.
If you're a fan of frozen yogurt, then you'll love the froyo goodness of Yogurt Bomb. Creamy and tangy yogurt with fruit notes like mango, guava, and a bit of tangerine is blended together for this flavor explosion. If you like Peach Guzzi, you'd like Yogurt Bomb as well with its fruit sherbet quality.
Just make sure your unit doesn't get too hot to keep tasting this flavor bomb at its fullest. The throat hit is pleasant and warm, and the fruits come through upon the exhale. While it doesn't put out that much smoke, you'll find it smooth and creamy for the most part. If you're looking for a taste experience, then this is the way to go.
If you love to travel abroad, like we here at Cafe Racer Vape do, and want to take your vape supplies with you, here's some info for you to keep in mind
Note that "banned" is a broad term. Vaping can be considered banned but it's legal to vape in that country - it's just not legal to buy and sell vaping products. This is the case in most countries listed below as "banned". Two countries that come to mind are Brazil and Argentina. If you look at Instagram or Facebook, you'll see quite a lot of posts from Brazilian and Argentinian vapers. It is illegal to sell vaping products in both countries but it's perfectly ok to vape in places where smoking is permitted.
The list of Banned countries below is actually terribly inaccurate. It's what you would typically find if you did a google search on "what countries is vaping Banned.
The reality is, you can 100% find vape shops in the following countries: Argentina, Belgium, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, and Colombia. We know this because we sell Cafe Racer to distributors and/or shops there.
In fact, Belgium has over 500 vape shops and is part of the EU's TPD. Mexico and Colombia both have large Vape Expos attracting thousands of retailers and vape enthusiasts. Malaysia is one of the leading exporters of eLiquid with brands like Nasty and Fanstasia. The lesson here is do your research before trusting a Banned List that you pull up on a google search and, with only a few exceptions, it's perfectly fine to travel to most countries with your vape in you bag and ok to vape wherever smoking is allowed.
That being said, there are a couple of countries where vaping can get you into some real trouble. We don't have a definitive list here but we know for sure:
Singapore and Thailand are two countries where you should not vape in public and should probably not travel to with vape products in your bag.
Australia, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iran, Japan, New Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland
A number of countries wherein vaping is legal and vape products are sold but they do not allow eLiquid with nicotine to be sold. It's a bit tricky and most local vapers work around this restriction in a number of ways.
For instance, Australia has the strictest laws on vaping in the English-speaking world and the sale of nicotine there is quite limited due to anti-smoking campaigns and consequently being cautious about the growing trend of vaping. While vaping and vape pens themselves are legal in every state, liquid nicotine isn't.
Most Aussie vapers would then buy their 0 MG e-liquid in Australia and then buy nicotine from either New Zealand or China, the latter of which may yield dubious results.
What Should You Do Before You Travel to a Another Country?
You should do your homework if you plan to travel to other countries, especially if your target destination is in the list above. In some countries (Thailand and Singapore) you actually can go to jail if you get caught with e-liquid like you were in possession of illegal drugs.
Consulting with other vapers in community forums may help you with the information you need to avoid making a vaping faux pas in those countries. As with everything, preparation is key.
To celebrate this special event, we are giving away some epic prizes to 3 LUCKY WINNERS to be announced on Friday the Lucky 13th!
Are you READY to WIN?
Here's the mechanics:
You need to complete any or all of the action steps below. The first action step is mandatory in order to be entered into the contest.
Note: Every action completed carries a point: The more points you gather, the greater chances of winning!
Some actions can be done more than once like:
(Which means you get additional points on doing them everyday!)
The winner will be chosen randomly (powered by Random.org)!
Good luck!
If you're already following us on Instagram (which you should!), make sure you turn your Notifications (Posts & Story) on, because we will be having surprise giveaways on our page from July 1 - July 12!
Vaping has become such a phenomenon worldwide almost overnight, much of which is thanks to the power of the Internet. The vaping community continues to grow and a lot of vapers are very much willing to share their knowledge and experiences on all things vaping.
Whether you're new to vaping or an experienced one, you'll be stoked to know that heaps of helpful vaping resources are just a click away.
So, if you're looking for vaping blogs to follow, we've rounded up the ten of the best and most rad right now on the Internet!
http://www.vapor4life.com/blog
As one of the largest and most frequented vaping blogs online, the Vapor4Life blog is a hub of knowledge for both new and experienced vapers worldwide. It has what you'd expect from a blog about vaping that's run for the community, with daily tips and tricks and vaping news, as well as testimonials on personal vaping experiences, politics, and so on.
Another popular vaping blog, VaporVanity brings news and product reviews to vaporizing aficionados everywhere. You can subscribe to the email newsletter and have new articles sent to your inbox. If you're looking to stay updated on everything vaping-related, whether it's the latest products or legal/cultural developments, then this is the blog for you.
Touting oneself as “The Voice of Vaping” is quite the boast, but VapingDaily does back it up by being an all-in-one resource for vaping with vaping-related news and guides in its blog. When you visit the site, you may also notice the “How to Quit” item on the navigation menu. It leads to their guide on how to quit smoking through various means, including with electronic cigarettes and vaping.
Aside from being an online store for all things vaping-related, this website also has a blog that is updated regularly with news and other articles on the latest happenings in the vaping world. With its history going way back to 2006, Vaping.com has seen through pretty much everything in the vaping world, from its growing pains to where it is now.
Vaping360 is the world’s largest vaping media website with close to one million monthly visitors. The website was started in late 2014 with the goal of helping smokers switch to a cleaner alternative. Since it’s inception, Vaping360 has garnered a truly global audience with the help of experienced vaping contributors from all around the world. As the home of vaping, our aspiration is to help create a smoke-free planet.
https://vapinglinks.wordpress.com/
Run by an ex-smoker from Ohio who got into vaping during its early days, VapingLinks is a blog made for those who are looking for answers on how to quit smoking by getting into vaping. This website is more about the personal side of vaping, sharing thoughts and experiences of both the proprietor and those who got into vaping to kick their old habits. It's filled to the brim with articles on the science of vaping, related field research, and so on.
http://guidetovaping.com/category/vape-blog/
As the name suggests, this blog is all about guiding people in vaping. What makes it different from most other vaping blogs is its listings of up-and-coming vape events and celebrity interviews to go with the usual news and reviews you'd expect from a major vaping blog. If you're looking for regular content, then this is the blog to follow.
This blog is more about quality than quantity. While TheHappyVaper doesn't have as many posts in a week as most other blogs in this list, you're sure to get quality reading from what you can get here. It's run by a vaping enthusiast who got into it back in 2010 and instantly got hooked, so it's one of those blogs run by a vaper for fellow vapers.
If you're interested with the business of vaping, then the American Vaping Association blog should be up your street. As an organization, the AVA acts upon its mission to educate people about vaping and disseminate the latest scientific research on the subject. This blog is for serious vaping enthusiasts.
https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/blog-list/
While this is more of a forum and not a blog, the ECF can function much like a blog as a resource and a community hub. Members post their own content, from testimonials about their vaping journey to answering questions about the intricacies of vaping. It also has links to blogs that are worth checking out, filled with articles written by real people who vape.
‘Naturally extracted tobacco’ or NET refers to the process by which the tobacco flavor or essence is removed (extracted) from the tobacco leaf.
Many eLiquids use synthetic tobacco flavorings produced in a laboratory. These types of flavors have their place in the market and in eLiquids, but in our opinion, they fail to capture the true essence of tobacco flavors and the many available varieties.
Cafe Racer’s tobacco flavors, including Lucky 13, Lucky Bastard and Cool Bastard as well as our Nic Salts line of Salty Bastard Tobacco and Tobacco Ice stand out for their smooth and distinctive flavor profiles. One of the main reasons for this is that we use a proprietary extract from real tobacco leaves to produce real tobacco taste without the harshness, bitterness and often chemical flavor of most tobacco eLiquids on the market.
When we started Cafe Racer E-Liquid, doing a proper RY4 flavor to go with our love of craft beers was a top priority. Given that most of the commonly used tobacco flavors available were unacceptable, we made a pilgrimage to tobacco country (Carolinas, Virginia, etc) in search of a new source. After weeks of meetings and testing, we were able to find an amazing tobacco flavor that was naturally extracted Virginia tobacco and a compound of several ingredients creating a rich, smooth almost buttery tobacco that was a perfect base to build a next generation RY4 tobacco flavors.
It would seem that our decision to go this route was a good one as Lucky 13 has won numerous awards at Vape Expos around the world for Best Tobacco including Vape Summit Houston, Expovape Spain, Ukrainian Vapor Week , Vapouround Awards and is also the top selling premium tobacco flavor in China - a country that loves tobacco eLiquid flavors.
We invite you to enjoy our tobacco flavors and when you do, we'd highly recommend pairing them with a fine craft beer. For more on this, check out previous blog post on Pairing eLiquid With Craft Beer.
E-liquid flavors is what makes vaping a lot more interesting. Without it, it's just breathing water vapor in and out without anything else interesting going on. Once you're off combustibles and into vaping, you'll would want to get the best e-liquid flavor(s) that fits your tastes. You may even stock up on your favorites - always a good idea.
However, that does mean you have to store them properly in order to be able to expect them to be there ready to go when you want them the most.
Whether you're storing your eliquid for just a while or for a longer period of time, you should keep it in a cool, dark place away from any source of heat. High temperatures can deteriorate the quality of an e-liquid, even if it's not in direct sunlight or not in a hot enough condition that would have it immediately vaporize by itself.
Heat messes with the flavor compounds in the e-liquid and turn them into something else, so whatever you bought it for will no longer be if stored in a hot place. It's best to keep your e-liquid in a cool place.
You must properly seal your e-liquid in a proper container that will not let air or ultraviolet light in. Both of these things can deteriorate the quality of the e-liquid and hasten oxidation of the nicotine within it. If exposed to these elements, the e-liquid will change color as a result of chemical reactions.
Nicotine oxidation produces cotinine, which is the predominant metabolite of the former. Along with that is the breakdown of the flavors in the e-liquid, and ultraviolet rays act as a catalyst to this chemical reaction.
Other flavorful things like coffee and chocolate undergo a similar process when they oxidize, which also result in their loss of their pleasant flavors. While it's impossible to keep it from oxidizing forever, having your e-liquid sealed tight in a cool and dark place when not in use can certainly help it last a lot longer.
Leaving e-liquid in these places can become rather common due to online shipping. Sometimes, due to various circumstances, they may not get checked immediately upon delivery. When that happens, they sit in the mailbox or the car (if you got it from the post office) for quite a while, which is certainly not good for it.
If not moved to a cool and dark place right away, you'll find the e-liquid to be a runny mess instead of the syrupy goodness you'd usually expect.
There's no place cooler and darker for e-liquid than in the refrigerator. Before you think that would be too cold, do know that it's not only okay but also beneficial for the e-liquid. Since most bacteria can't thrive in near freezing temperatures, keeping it there can slow down or even kill whatever nasties may be hitching a ride inside those bottles.
If you really need to keep it in there for a longer time, you may want to move them to the freezer. There should be no need to fear the e-liquid turning into ice as the concoction won't just freeze like water. In fact, storing them in the freezer can make the liquid inside a bit more viscous, which may be what you'd want anyway.
Keep your e-liquid away from children and pets.
Of course, you wouldn't want your e-liquid to be gotten into by those who aren't supposed to, and that's namely children and pets. While you can have childproof caps on it, that's no complete guarantee that your e-liquid can be made safe from tampering. Any parent would know just how incredible an inquisitive child's ability to get into things can really be.
Therefore, being able to put your e-liquid in a place out of their reach is crucial, like a high shelf or a cupboard if you're not planning to store it in the refrigerator. This is very important not only because you would want to be able to enjoy your e-liquid, but also because the nicotine in it is flammable and can be poisonous if directly consumed.
Short-term storage means you intend to use your e-liquid shortly, like within a week or so at most. As previously mentioned, the main concern here is to have it out of reach from children and pets while making sure it's in a cool dark place. If you have it in glass containers and can store it somewhere safe like in a locked drawer or a cupboard in a cool room, then it should be fine.
If you happen to have them in plastic containers, then you should squeeze the bottle without spilling the e-liquid before putting the cap on to get rid of the air inside to minimize oxidation. The cap must be closed tightly so air and moisture can't get in. If the e-liquid has been partially consumed, consider transferring to a smaller container.
If you have to store your e-liquid for a long time, then consider having it in tinted glass containers. The glass will ensure the chemical integrity of the e-liquid throughout the duration, while the tint will make sure no light can damage the contents. Keep in mind that e-liquids tend to last for around 2 years in storage as long as they're stored right.
Having them refrigerated can extend shelf life, but it's still recommended to consume it before the 2-year period is up.
Also make sure to not mix the components right away if you know you'll have to store them away for a long time in order to maintain freshness as much as possible.
Cafe Racer is stoked to announce that we are once again back in the China market - and now available in 60ML Bottles. Cafe Racer Relaunched in China after a brief period of pulling out of the market due to a problem with counterfeit products,
We have added a new layer of security measures to insure that our customers in China will know that they are getting authentic 100% USA Made Cafe Racer Vape products - utilizing a QR Code that can be authenticated.
We have also launched our Nic Salt line in China - Salty Bastard. Available in 3 flavors - Tobacco, Tobacco Ice and Tangerine - Salty Bastard will be sold in a 3 x 10ML bottle case starting June 18th.
Look for Cafe Racer at your favorite Vape Shop in China or online at one of our premier resellers listed below
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 13, 2018
Shenzhen, China
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FOR THE VIDEO PRESS RELEASE CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW:
Happy Friday the Lucky 13th Day everyone! Cafe Racer Vape is stoked to announce that we will be participating at the IECIE Vape Expo being held April 14 - 16, 2018 in Shenzhen, China. We would like to say thanks to our Swedish friends at Subohm.com for inviting us to participate with them in their booth which is located at 7B22
Due to our ongoing investigation into a large stock of unauthentic Cafe Racer 60ML Bottles that appeared in the China market on April 3rd, Cafe Racer will not be engaging in any wholesale or distributor sales at the Expo.
That being said, we would like to invite distributors and wholesalers to visit our booth and discuss future cooperation as we are confident about returning to the China market in the near future.
We are also happy to announce that we can offer the Cafe Racer fans here in China a special offer to purchase authentic Cafe Racer eLiquid directly via our website at www.cafereacervape.com As a way to say thanks for your support we’ll be offering our fans here in China 25% off our regular pricing by using a special promo code: CRLOVEVCHINA . This offer will start on April 14th at 10:00 AM China Time.
This will be Cafe Racer's 4th time exhibiting at the IECIE Expo and we are stoked to have a chance to meet up with with many of our customers and fans. Cafe Racer will also be releasing some new products at the expo which we can't wait to share with everyone.
For more information of if you have any feedback or questions, please contact us via our WeChat page CafeRacerVape1
ONE MORE THING ...
New Look, Same Great Cafe Racer Flavors: We are officially announcing that we have refreshed the Cafe Racer Logo with a new look and aesthetic. This will be Cafe Racer's new logo world-wide with a roll out beginning in China at IECIE on April 14th and then Globally starting in May 2018.
Cafe Racer loves you China - hope to see you in Shenzhen!
April 9, 2018
For OFFICIAL RELEASE:
Cafe Racer has launched a full investigation after discovering a large number of unauthorized 60ML Cafe Racer E-LIquid bottles in the Chinese market. Founder/CEO Kurt Sonderegger flew to China as soon as this news was known to work with the local authorities and insure this matter is cleared up as soon as possible.
For our Official Announcement, Click on the Image below:
Cafe Racer Vape prides itself on providing it's customers around the world with high-quality E-Liquid and is committed to providing our Chinese vape customers information about any unauthorized products that were not manufactured in our ISO/GSM certified lab based in California, USA
"Starting on April 3, 2018, we found that in the China market of unknown origin. This only applies to 60ML bottles with identical labels and are indistinguishable from our authorized and approved products. These bottles did not come from our lab in California, and it does not belong to our brand."
Cafe Racer Vape does not currently have any 60ml of products circulating in China. Since February 2018, it has not entered into a partnership with any foreign trade company in China and has withdrawn from the Chinese market indefinitely until this matter is resolved.
"We have the responsibility to publicize the above information in a timely manner to ensure public health and the rights of consumers and trade partners. We regret the impact of this situation but have decided to investigate all Cafe Racer branded products the market and halt all sales there until this matter is resolved."
For Cafe Racer's Chinese fans who enjoy our award-winning E-Liquids and have questions, please add Cafe Racer Vape's official Chinese WeChat page or our private WeChat page: CafeRacerVape1 or by scanning the QR code below for details.
For our Official WeChat Announcement, click HERE
It's been a while since we last had a giveaway, and now it's time for a NEW one to reward our loyal customers and welcome the new racers!
But before that, here's a quick run down of what's new in Cafe Racer, in case you're new here or in case you missed them:
So with that in mind, we're stoked to announce that we're giving away 6 x 60ml bottles of Cafe Racer flavors via Rafflecopter!
Here's HOW:
Back in post WW2 England, Cafe Racers were built because of a lack of production motorcycles that had the performance the riders wanted. The Rockers or Ton Up boys went to great lengths to defy the manufacturers by building their own custom "sport bikes”. A high powered Triumph engine was transplanted in to a legendary Norton featherbed frame and the Triton Cafe Racer was born.
Today there are a plethora of motorcycles that out power and out perform the classics and building a Cafe Racer is no longer just about the search for better performance, it is an expression of style...but in the most practical sense by makers worldwide who love to tinker and customize their bikes as they best fit their own style and performance requirements.
The personal vaporizer / electronic cigarette industry has a lot of parallels to Cafe Racer culture. The initial electronic cigarettes lacked the performance that people wanted. People started hacking these designs and creating their own mods and early open tank vapes. You can read more about the full story on the evolution of Ecigs and Vapes in our previous blog post.
On the e-Liquid side, people also quickly realized that the initial tobacco and menthol flavors available were ok but there was a whole world of flavor to be explored to create the kinds of flavors that people would really enjoy. Eliquid makers, including Cafe Racer, worked at utilizing the new more powerful atomizers to bring a whole range of new flavors and updating some old ones (like Cafe Racer's Lucky 13 and Lucky Bastard as an updated versions of RY4 Tobacco Flavor).
Electronic Cigarettes were initially designed to look like real cigarettes - all the way down to the colors on the tubes and a light at the end of the tip. They were low powered closed systems without many options.
Photo Credit: http://vaping360.com/
Several years after the first ecig was introduced (2003) , early ecig enthusiasts started hacking their off the shelf ecig devices to increase the performance and create more vapor, add more power and increase the battery life. Check out our previous article A Brief History of Ecig / Vape Design for a full look at this.
Over time, the focus of many hardware manufacturers seemed to be on more power (ie 200W +mods and .2Ohm coils) and big clouds. While more power and sub ohm resistance on the atomizers allowed for much better flavor transfer, many x smokers weren’t looking to create massive vapor clouds, and didn’t want to figure out watts, ohms and voltage - they were simply looking for a way to stop smoking and for a simple vaporizer to help them with this goal.
Pax Labs changed everything in 2015 with the introduction of the JUUL. No story about this would be complete without looking back to Pax Labs’ first ecig / vape - introduced in early 2010 called the Ploom Model One ( Ploom was also name of the company back then) I have first hand experience to this product release, as I was Ploom Inc’s 1st employee at after the 2 founders, both recent Stanford University D School grads - starting late 2007. The Ploom Model One was a revolutionary form factor but unfortunately it had a ton of design problems, including using butane vs a battery (imagine having to carry butane with you to fill the tank as needed), heat not burn tobacco pods that produced very little vapor and thus very little nicotine and a mouthpiece that would often fall off at inopportune moments.
Ploom knew it had to to fix the Model One but first they first pivoted and worked with an industrial design team and developed the Pax by Ploom - a dry leaf vaporizer. The Pax was an immediate hit and went on to sell hundreds of thousands of units and become the leader in the loose leaf vaporizer category, most often associated with cannabis.
With the success of the Pax, Ploom changed their name to Pax Labs and then eventually set out to conquer the tobacco vaporizer market. They took a different approach to almost all leading companies in the vape space at that time, as most were releasing the latest high power mod or sub ohm tank and instead looked to solve a key problem - how to increase the conversion rate of smokers to vapers who were trying vaping for the first time. To do this, they looked to resolve two problems - simplicity of design and nicotine uptake - which would be more akin to what smokers were used to and thus would help smokers shift from smoking to vaping.
Pax Labs introduced the JUUL on June 1, 2015 without a lot of fanfare. The device featured a sleek design, no buttons and an atomizer that is contained inside the disposable Juul pods. The pods also had .7ML of eLiquid with the newly introduced Nicotine Salt eLiquid in 4 flavors at 5% Nicotine or 50MG - more than enough to give smokers the satisfaction they were missing from traditional combustable cigarettes and a much more immediate kick than open system vaporizers.
JUUL started getting a lot more traction when Vapor Shark, based in Florida, pushed JUUL to it’s 160+ retail outlets plus it’s growing distribution network of thousands of Vape Shops nationally. JUUL gave independent Vape Shops a new tool to offer new customers looking to make the switch from smoking to vaping. It also became a favorite for existing vapers who were looking for a more discrete device that allowed them to vape without creating big clouds at home, at work or in other locations where blowing big clouds of vapor might cause concern or not be allowed.
By 2017 JUUL was a runaway hit - at both independent vape shops and a network of over 15,000 convenient stores. So much so that Pax Labs was having a lot of trouble with production to meet demand and retailers were often out of stock. It was inevitable that the highly competitive vape industry would take notice and soon many hardware companies were developing and releasing a new generation of closed system Pod Mods as well as next gen low wattage mouth to lung open system devices. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the options out there but this list is far from complete - there are literally dozens of pod mods by different manufacturers as well as a growing list of open system low wattage sleek devices.
Closed System Pod Mods:
By definition, these devices are only not open to using any pods or eLiquid other than from the maker of the device. The 3 system below also all feature proprietary charging systems - which can be annoying when you loose the charging dock or cable. Users did start hacking JUUL and other pods to be able to use other brands of Nic Salt and other high nicotine eLiquid but in general most users stick to only the pods/flavors provided by these manufacturers. Cost is certainly a factor as a pack of 4 JUUL pods cost approx $15.95 and it’s easy to vape 1 or more pods in a day. Here are a few of the top sellers in this category:
JUUL by Pax Labs: Each JUUL pod contains 0.7mL with 5% nicotine by weight. It is the gold standard in pod mod designs.
Bo by Jwell: Designed and crafted in France, Bo is a popular closed system vape device with a number of flavored pod eLiquid options.
Phix by MLV: The PHIX is a solid closed loop system with a 280 MAH internal battery. The pod holds a 1.5ml e-liquid pod with 5% nicotine by weight with a resistance of about 1.4ohm to 1.5ohm
Next Gen Open System Low Wattage (Mouth to Lung) Devices:
With the higher cost and limited options of closed system pod mods, there was a clear opening for manufactures to produce open system low wattage small devices that would be ideal for higher nicotine Nic Salts and provide users with more options on eLiquid flavors, nic levels and designs.
Here are a few of the most popular next gen Open System low wattage devices that are currently on the market. It pays to do some research to find what device would work best for you
Aspire Breeze: The breeze has a built-in refillable tank that holds 2ml of e-juice. It also utilizes a U-tech coil which provides a flavorful vape. It also features an auto-fire feature, so no need to press the fire button, just inhale. The fire button also helps further navigate the Breeze and provides for a slightly better draw.
Suorin Air: This is an all-in-one pod type device that holds up to 2ml of your favorite e-liquid. The Suorin Air has a 400mAh rechargeable built-in battery with vape-while-charging technology. Easy to operate, the Surion Air has one power switch and the device is instantly activated through inhalation. Perhaps the best feature is the ease of swapping pod cartridges, allowing you the option to purchase multiple pods at an inexpensive price to keep filled with several of your favorite e-liquid flavors.
Suorin Drop: The Suorin Drop features an alternative design compared to the card-style design of the original Suorin Air. The Suorin Drop features a unique water drop design which is both lightweight and compact due to the zinc alloy housing. The Suorin Drop features no buttons and is automatically activated when you inhale. The Suorin Drop features a built-in 310mAh battery which may be recharged using the micro USB charging port located on the bottom of the device. The Suorin Drop utilizes a 2.0ml refillable cartridge system which may be filled with your favorite e-Liquid.
JoyTech Atopack Dolphin: The Dolphin is a compact refillable pod based system with a built in 2100mAh battery and utilizes the new JVIC coil system and features a large capacity 6ml interchangeable pod system. The pod system is designed to allow the user to quickly change flavors by simply swapping pods and features a graduated eLiquid viewing window.
eLeaf iCare2: The iCare 2 boasts a removable 2ml tank and a beefier 650 mAh rechargeable battery with a 15W maximum output perfectly paired with the 1.3 ohm IC Coil. Despite being smaller than the iCare, the iCare 2 squeezes in a top filled 2 milliliter top filled reservoir. Utilizing a press to fire activated design, output of the iCare 2 maintains the maximum output of 15W, providing astounding performance for the size. The fill port section is accessed by removing the mouth piece.
These are just a few of the many next gen open system low wattage MTL devices that are ideal for people looking for sleek simple devices that are optimized for higher nic eLiquid - especially Nic Salt.
With the success of Cafe Racer's tobacco flavors - Lucky 13, Lucky Bastard and Cool Bastard, we felt that we had a big opportunity to provide a rich tobacco experience unavailable in the new market of Nic Salt eLiquids. We took the rich tobacco RY4 flavor profile of Lucky Bastard/Cool Bastard and optimized them for low wattage atomizers and Nic Salt - and thus Salty Bastard and Salty Bastard Ice were born. We offer these flavors in 25Mg and 40MG - which allows you to optimize your experience for a variety of closed or open systems. Salty Bastard is not meant for use in devices that reach sub-ohm resistance. 
1. NICOTINE SALTS EXPLAINED
Nicotine salts are the natural state of nicotine in the tobacco leaf. They are compounds consisting of free base nicotine bound to one or more organic constituents. Naturally, nicotine does not exist on its own in the tobacco leaf. Rather, it is linked by hydrogen bonding or other inter-molecular forces to organic molecules on the tobacco leaves. Combinations of different organic constituents can be selected to harness the differing properties of nicotine inhalation character, such as making nicotine either pack a punch, or reduce irritation and bite.
2. NICOTINE SALTS VS. FREE BASE NICOTINE
Standard free base nicotine is a single molecule, while nicotine salts are complexes. Nicotine salt is much more suitable to vaporization due to its preferential inhalation characteristics. Nicotine salts also offer a way of stabilizing the nicotine molecule. This extends the shelf life of nicotine, by means of making it is less prone to oxidation.
3. NICOTINE SALT & BLOOD ABSORPTION
Nicotine salts possess a different pH than that of free base nicotine. Some nicotine salts may be closer to the biological pH of certain membrane locations in the esophagus and lungs. Therefore, nicotine salts exhibit differing inhalation and absorption properties. For instance, by delivering nicotine into the bloodstream both faster and more efficiently, the user will have an experience bearing more semblance to combustible cigarettes.
4. HOW IS IT MADE? (SHORT VERSION)
Nicotine salts are extracted from the tobacco leaves and then both fractionally distilled and chromatographed differently than standard nicotine. They are natural products isolated from tobacco leaves, or can be linked synthetically/chemically.
5. BENEFITS OF NICOTINE SALT
Taking a step back from the science behind nicotine slats, what is the benefit vs regular nicotine found in most e-liquids?
A. You’ll get more nicotine, more quickly: In general, nicotine salts paired with the right device seem to get nicotine to your blood more quickly. This experience is more closely resemble the experience of users with combustable tobacco.
B. You don’t need a powerful device: Nicotine salt e-liquids are best with low wattage (non-sub-ohm) devices.
C. Nicotine salt E-Liquid has a longer shelf-life: Nicotine salts are more stable than freebase nicotine, which means that nicotine salt e-juice will last longer in storage without the nicotine degrading.
6. WHAT ARE THE BEST DEVICES FOR VAPING NICOTINE SALT?
Nicotine salts e-liquid is intended for use in lower-power devices - there are a number of Open System and Closed System devices on the market with new options arriving all the time. Here are a few of our favorites to consider:
By Devin Caldwell
(Guest Post)
With the sun out and the temperature rising, the summer months are a great time for days at the beach. If you have a vape, you probably take it with you wherever you go, but there are extra considerations you need to keep in mind when you vape during the summer.
Keep Your eLiquid in a Safe Temperature Range
E-juice can handle a fairly wide temperature range, but it can spoil if you don’t keep it in that range. To avoid this, make sure that you store your e-juice in a location that’s between about 55 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. This rules out your fridge, and it definitely rules out your car on a hot day. Keep this in mind if you go to your local vape shop and buy some e-juice when it’s hot out. You don’t want to stash that e-juice in your car while you spend two hours in the mall.
What happens to e-juice that has been in the heat for too long? The heat ruins the flavor, so it will taste terrible if you try to use it. Heat can also alter the texture of an e-juice and break down its nicotine, so using that e-juice may clog your vape. If you accidentally allow your e-juice to overheat, just dispose of it. It’s not smart to use it, and you won’t be able to fix it. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Don’t Let Your Battery Blow Up
Leaving your e-juice out in the heat is bad, but leaving your battery out can be far worse. Once the temperature exceeds 100 degrees, a vape battery’s cells become damaged. This will result in a significantly shorter battery life.
If a battery is exposed to temperatures over 120 degrees, it can explode. That will obviously ruin your vape box mod, and if there’s anyone in the area, they could end up seriously injured. If a battery explodes and catches fire, you need to find a way to smother it or use a fire extinguisher, because water only causes a chemical reaction.
Never leave your battery in the car when it’s hot. The temperature inside a car on a hot day can quickly rise far higher than the actual outdoor temperature, so even if it’s 80 degrees out, it could get hot enough in your car to make your battery explode. Keep your battery out of direct sunlight. If you bring your vape to the beach or anywhere else with you, put it in the shade.
Lower Your Voltage
When it’s hotter, e-juice gets a bit thinner, which means you don’t need as much voltage to heat it anymore. You may want to consider taking your voltage down a notch, especially if you typically vape at high voltages. Thinner e-juice also makes leaks more likely, so make sure that all the connections on your vape are nice and tight.
Stock Up on Supplies
Summer is the perfect time to get some vaping supplies, in particular a backup battery and a travel charger.
In many areas, summer is thunderstorm season, which can leave you without power for days on end. To ensure that you’re still able to vape if this happens, you’ll want to have at least one extra battery on hand.
If you’re taking a vacation this summer, make sure you have a travel charger for your vape so you can charge it when you’re away from home. An extra battery can also come in handy here.
You don’t need to make too many adjustments when you’re vaping in the summer, but you should be aware of potential hazards that can occur if you leave your vaping supplies out in the heat. Having a charged battery at all times is key, especially if you’re traveling, which is why picking up a travel charger and an extra battery is a good idea.
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This is a guest post by Devin Caldwell https://medium.com/@dev.caldwell1
Win TWO (2) x 120ML Cafe Racers of your Choice Plus a Racer Hat!
We're all geared up for Spring and we're almost READY to launch our new product line SIDECAR by Cafe Racer! SideCar brings together great flavor with a good value in line of 3 fun flavors. Stay tuned on our channels for more information and you can follow the launch of Sidecar via Instagram at @sidecar_eliquid
So while you wait, we're giving away the following items to 1 lucky winner!
Enter your details below to qualify and be entered to win!
It’s only fitting that the 1st Secret Garage Party took place in the little known country of Lithuania. Lithu-fucking-Wha?
We put the call out to some of our global retail and distribution partners and the team from Ecodumas Vape Shops based in Kaunas, Lithuania stepped up with a solid plan to throw the 1st Secret Garage Party. We were already booked to be in Europe for ExpoVape Spain as well as Ukraine Vapor Week so the timing was perfect for late November.
Lithuania is one of the three Baltic states, it is located along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden and Denmark. and is home to about 2.9 million people. Our retail partners in Lithuania, Ecodumas, have 30 vape shops located around the country as well as a few shops in Latvia. They also are part of a vape group called Debesu Lyga - which literally translated is League of Clouds. Debesu Lyga has now over 9,000 active members. While a relatively overall population, Lithuania's vape scene is thriving.
Secret Garage Party Concept:
Cafe Racer bike builders spend a great deal of time in their garages or work shops tinkering with their bikes - looking for ways to increase both the beauty and the performance. They are makers and the bikes are a way for them to channel their creativity into a physical form. Often times they create custom parts by hand - a time consuming labor of love that makes their bikes unique from factory purchased bikes and parts.
As a tribute to these makers, we are launching a series of events inspired the thousands of amazing cafe racer builders and other DIY makers of all things around the world.
Lithuania Steps Up:
The guys from Ecodumas pulled out all the stops. They found an incredible venue that was tucked away in an industrial area, put the word out to debesu lyga, local, story in the local newspaper and booked a top local rap act named Mad Money and went all in on making sure that the event went off without a hitch.
We had no idea how the event would go down but with the amount of energy the team put into every detail on production, we knew that it would be something special.
The doors opened at 7:00 PM and I have to admit we all suffered a little from to some pre-event jitters - would people show up? -That’s always a big question mark for event organizers. By 7:30 there was a line to get in and it was pretty clear that we would have a solid crowd.
Tasting Bar - Gas Station
One of the really cool ideas that the ecodumas guys brought to the table was to offer all participants free vape tank fill ups all night at the tasting bar. We had no idea how many vapers would show up so we brought 25 120ML bottles just in case. The Racer Bar was packed all night and we ended up giving out all the eLiquid from that stash - a pretty amazing stat!
Trick Comp + Tornado
Both the trick and tornado competitions were huge crowd pleasers with the top tricksters from Lithuania showing that their creative vaping.
MadMoney (Main Music Act)
MadMoney is three-person rap act based in Lithuania. They have the largest youtube plays and followers of any music group in Lithuania Based in Kaunsas, these guys killed it and brought the house down with a massive energy set.
When the lights came on at about 3:00 AM the venue was still packed with lots of smiling faces. The party went off without a hitch with the exception of a couple of lost items but that is to pretty par for the course. We'd like to say a HUGE thanks to Ecodumas, Debesu Lyga and all of the awesome folks that came out to the event.
Secret Garage Party Goes Global:
We will be expanding the Secret Garage Party events in 2017 with possible stops in Indonesia, China, Spain, Belgium, UK and and other countries where Cafe Racer has been on the market for some time and it's time to thanks all of our customers and partners for their help in making Cafe Racer a truly global brand.
Here's a little video we put together to capture the spirit of the party:
Post Party Sauna
Lithuania takes sauna seriously and after a long night of partying, it was just what the doctor ordered for the ecocumas team and a super cool way for us to experience this traditional custom. It also helped sweat out some of the alcohol from a 14 hour day/night.
National News Covers Electronic Cigarettes:
As we were getting worked at the Lithuania Sauna ( a guy literally beats you with a stick and leaves in the Sauna) the national news came and and I was able to film a short clip
This aired nationally in Lithuania in prime time on Sunday night just before X Factor - a top rated show there. Great to see that they were using Cafe Racer for the test.
We set out on a 1 month European adventure in late September 2016. We booked 3 expos over a 3 1/2 week span with some extra time built in to travel and learn more about the vaping scene in some select areas.
Our first stop on the tour was Paris Vape Expo held Sept. 25 - 27 at the majestic Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris.
In France, Vape is pronounced "Vap" - which in some ways has a cooler sound to it than it's english counterpart. The French are notorious for being heavy smokers. It's a cultural thing. Vaping has been growing at a rapid clip in France as smokers rapidly transition from combustibles to combustibles while maintaining the ritual that is such a part of everyday life in France.
Our booth set up was pretty basic and once again we were able to score an awesome Cafe bike. This bad ass Moto Guzzi actually is the personal bike of Cafe Racer's partners based in Paris - US Vaping
Opening day on Sunday was a madhouse. The line to get in stretched for about a 1/4 mile outside of the venue. 
Our booth was up in the balcony as part of the US Vaping VIP area. We had a chance to meet vape shop retailers from all over Europe - including this crew Switzerland - www.facebook.com/CaveDuVapoteur/
The weather was spectacular during our stay in Paris. The walk from our hotel to the Grand Hall was along a river and had lots of nice areas to hang and enjoy the day.
One of the highlights of the Expo was a boat trip around the Seine River organized by US Vaping for their partners.
One of the big questions we had going into this expo was how would the french like our latest flavor creation - Croissant. The french have a lot of pride in their cuisine and culture and we were a little nervous as to their response .... after the first few locals sampled croissant we knew that it would be a hit. We sold out of croissant after the 2nd day at the show!
We made a ton of new friends at VapExpo Paris and look forward to returning again in 2017. Big ups to the organizers and US Vaping for helping make this a huge success
Closing dinner at Buddha Bar Paris with our friends from Ecodumas Vape based in Lithuania
Next up on our EuroTour: Kiev, Ukraine
With Paris under our belts, the real adventure was about to begin as we made our way to Kiev, Ukraine for Kiev Vape Expo held October 1 - 2, 2016
Ukraine has a shared culture and history with neighboring nations, dating back to the 9th century. Mutual customs are shared among the cultures of Russia, Poland, Belarus and other Central Asia countries. Ukraine has gone through number of major political shifts starting with the fall of the Soviet Union then the Orange Revolution in 2004, the ousting of it's president in 2010 and most recently the protests in Kiev's Independence Square. Unlike the bloodless Orange Revolution, these protests resulted in more than 100 deaths, occurring mostly between 18 and 20 February.
We arrived in Kiev and were taken back by the friendly welcome we received from everyone we met. After settling in at the apartment we rented for the week - we met up with our local team from Vaping Stuff for a pre-event dinner.
Like many places around the world, Cafe Racer culture is alive and well in Kiev. We were able to team up with some local builders to showcase this bad ass Moto Guzzi at our booth.
This was one of the first major vape expos held in Ukraine with mostly local shops nad distribution companies exhibiting.
The event definitely had a some colorful elements that one doesn't see at most vape events in USA or Europe ... like the twerk competition and body painting.
Our booth was pretty slammed for both days. We had a ton of fun meeting the folks from Kiev and other cities in Ukraine and neighboring countries who attended.
We held a little party at a cool spot in Kiev called Rockfellow 210 which offered private rooms with Playstation, Fusball and our own bar and lounge area. Was great to chill with our #Vapegypsy friends and partners.
Big ups to Kiev and the Ukraine crew for hosting an amazing first Vape Expo. We are more than stoked to be returning for not 1 but 2 events there Nov 12 + 13 for Ukrainian Vapor Week by Smile and Ukrainian Vapor Week by Events-International
NEXT UP: Tour of Belgium and Amsterdam
After doing the Expo in Paris and then Kiev, we were ready for a little adventure and decided to head to Belgium and Amsterdam for a week to check out the vape scenes there. The fact that Belgium also has some of the best beer in the world in no way influenced this decision ;)
The first stop was Brussels where we have a Cafe Racer retailer called VIP Corner.
Pairing Lucky 13 and Lucky Bastard with Belgium Beers was the idea behind these flavors since we started the company. Leffe is a common Belgium beer found in many countries around and it one of the best beers to pair with our award winning tobacco flavors.
No visit to Brussels by someone who loves craft beer would be complete without visiting Delirium Cafe - which features over 4,500 beers. We could have spent weeks here but unfortunately only had one evening to sample the local suds.
After cruising around Brussels for an afternoon, we made the trip out to Waterloo to visit our friends at VIP Corner. This is their original shop and one of 3 that they have in the Brussels area.
After a visit to the shop, our hosts took us to a local craft brewery/restaurant for some amazing mussels and of course, some awesome local beer.
NEXT STOP: GHENT, BELGIUM
Brussels is an international city and home to the EU Parliment. It's mostly french speaking and is a modern cosmopolitan urban center. For some real Belgium scenery, we headed west to the picturesque city of Ghent.
Ghent is similar to the famous city of Bruges, but also has 100k college students and is definitely more lively. Ghent almost feels like you've entered a city from Game of Thrones.
While in Ghent we dropped in on one of Cafe Racer retail partners e-life to check out their shops and get to know the team.
NEXT STOP: ANTWERP, BELGIUM
After 4 amazing days in Ghent, we hopped on a train to Antwerp. Antwerp has a totally different vibe than Ghent. Having been mostly destroyed by bombing during WWII, Antwerp features much more modern architecture and is also home the largest diamond trading business in the world.
We decided to check out a hostel in Antwerp vs renting an apartment on Airbnb just to change things up - and man were we stoked on finding this gem called ASH
After settling in, we went out to explore and check out some of the local vape shops in Antwerp.
What we found was beyond anything we've seen in any country - a top notch vape shop called Vapor Shop with a line out the door to get in... and this is the scene there everyday!
We closed out our trip in Antwerp by dropping in on a pop up party held on the 21st floor of an office building with some top DJ's from Holland laying down some amazing deep house until the wee hours.
NEXT STOP: AMSTERDAM
The trip from Antwerp to Amsterdam by train takes a little over 2 hours. We would have liked to have stopped in Rotterdam but with only 3 days open before heading to Birningham for the Vaper Expo UK - we put that on our list for the next trip.
We were able to score a nice apartment through our friends at HardCore Vapers who are based in Amsterdam. It's always nice when you're on the road for an extended trip to stay in places that feel like home - with plenty of room to work, chill as well as cook the occasional meal.
Amsterdam is a city built for cycling. Stats show that over 40% of the people in Amsterdam bike commute to work vs drive or take public transport. We took this to heart and rented a couple of bikes to explore as well as use to get to our meetings there.
We were stoked to be able to drop in and visit our friends at Hardcore Vapers. They have a shop plus a lab and distribution company and are one of the main drivers of vape culture in Holland.
Thank you Amsterdam for a few days of catch up, cycling and another opportunity to meet some awesome people.
NEXT STOP: BIRMINGHAM UK FOR VAPER EXPO UK
This was Cafe Racer's 2nd time being a part of the Vaper Expo UK but this time we were able to bring our full booth vs be a part of a distributor's booth. The event had over 8k visitors last year and the organizers were predicting at least 10k over the course of 3 days.
Big Ups to our friends at Down And Out Cafe Racers for sharing this 2014 Custom Triumph Scrambler with us. It's aways great to meet the Cafe Racer builders spread out around the world.
Things got a little crazy at the booth when our friend Alika from Kvass broke into the bottle of Ukranian Vodka that we brought for him.
The show was pretty large as vape expos go. The creativity in the booth designs was definitely some of the best we've seen at any show - highlighting how mature the vape market is in the UK.
Our European partners US Vaping had a bangin booth that was packed from the opening bell to the closing hour of the show.
The UK was an amazing last stop on the Fall Tour. It's great to see how the scene here has matured and that the % of people vaping vs smoking is steadily increasing and spreading beyond the hard core vape community.
We are headed back to Europe in mid November 2016 for some more expos and touring. Keep an eye out on the blog for the next update.
Europe is quickly switching from combustables to vaping and we are stoked to be exhibiting at 3 of the top Vape Expos there over the next month.
First up is Paris Vape Expo taking place Sept. 25 - 27 at the majestic Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris. This was one of the biggest vape events in Europe last year and we look forward to introducing Cafe Racer's line to the French vape community. We can't wait to see how the French like Croissant!
The next stop on the tour will be the Kiev Vape Expo being held October 1 - 2. Ukraine will be a fun adventure for the Cafe Racer crew. It's a country with a rich cultural history but a vaping culture that is really getting started.
Our last stop on this month long vape adventure will be in Birmingham, England for the Vaper Expo UK taking place October 12 - 14. We exhibited at this show last year but this time we'll be bringing the full Cafe Racer booth and are stoked to be featuring a kick ass Cafe Racer bike from a local builder. Here's a sneak peak at the bike we'll be featuring in Birmingham
With the upcoming European vape regulations, known as the TPD , kicking in shortly, we have been working around the clock to meet the stringent rules that will govern vaping in Europe in the coming months - including the very unpopular rule that any eLiquid containing nicotine must be sold in 10ML plastic bottles.
We’ll be teaming up with US Vaping to distribute Cafe Racer's award winning eLiquids throughout Europe and will have our TPD compliant packaging ready by the end of October 2016.
We'll post some post event blogs in the coming weeks.
Cheers,
Cafe Racer Vape
The Vaper Expo UK, now in it's 2nd year, is one of the UK’s biggest and most recognized vape expo’s.
In conjunction with the Vaper Expo UK, Vapouround Magazine held a gala Awards event. The Vapouround Awards were held on May 4th at the NEC in Birmingham. From January 2016 to April 1st 2016 Vapouround invited companies to enter their products into the Vapouround Awards for a number of categories including 8 Juice flavors, Best Mod, Best Trade Show, etc - which were all judged categories. In addition to these, Vapouround opened up 3 categories for fans to vote: Best Vape Shop, Vaper of the Year and Juice of the Year. All entries were free of charge and had to fit 1 of the categories.
Held as a stand alone gala dinner event, this was truly a touch of class that was a high water mark for the vape industry as it relates to awards. The care that the Vapouround team took to insuring that things were submitted and judged properly ie blind judgjing on all Juice awards, making sure that each entree meets certain minimum compliance and ethical standards really was outstanding.
Cafe Racer's Lucky 13 made it to the finals for Best Tobacco flavor category. Additionally, Lucky 13 was nominated for Juice of the Year. This was a huge honor for a flavor that has already won Best in Show at Vape Summit V in Houston, TX in 2015 (click here for full recap of that event)
With over 250 industry execs on hand for the dinner and awards event, the evening had the air of a proper awards event that many more mature industries hold and was lacking in the fast growing vape world.
With 2 major nominations for Cafe Racer's Lucky 13, I was a bit nervous but also elated to be in such awesome company with the top UK and USA brands.
Lucky 13 won Best Tobacco. Like a proud father, I was super stoked and proud of the Cafe Racer team and elated that Lucky 13 once again was recognized as one of the best tobacco flavors in the world.
Lucky 13 was also up for Juice of the Year. Unlike the regular flavor categories which were judged, this was a reader poll and anyone around the world could vote for their favorite eLiquid as often as 1x per day for a period of 3 weeks. When we found out that Lucky 13 was nominated for this category we put out the word to our fans via social media and our newsletter - and they responded in droves! While Lucky 13 didn't take first place, it did finish 2nd and very close to the winner in voting % with 21.5% of the overall vote vs 30.5% for the winner - Nora's Dream. Big thanks to everyone who voted!
For a full overview on the Vapouround Awards a complete list of winners in all categories CLICK HERE
With all the excitement of the Vapouround Awards over, it was then time to prepare for the Vaper Expo UK. Held in the massive NEC Complex in Birmingham (UK's 2nd largest city located about 1 1/2 hours Northwest of London) the Vaper Expo UK would be Cafe Racer's debut in Europe and were stoked to mix it up with the UK vapers, retailers, distributors.
The turnout for the expo was fantastic with over 15,000 people attended over the 3 days.
Cafe Racer is distributed by The Juice Factory UK and exhibited as part of the stand with their partners Vapour Distribution.
The team rocked it all 3 days and we once again found some great craft beers to pair with Lucky 13 and Lucky Bastard to share with folks at the stand.
After 3 hectic days at the show, I took a couple of days in London to take in the sights and enjoy some downtime.
#Handcheck from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral
The Ace Cafe in northwest London is one of the most iconic biker hangouts in history—and the spiritual home of the original 'cafe racer' motorcycle. It was great to make the pilgrimage here to experience this place first hand and hang with some of the local motorbike enthusiasts.
I truly felt like a #LuckyBastard on this trip. From the Vapouround Awards to the Vaper Expo UK and to taking in some of London's sights - it was an amazing trip - the first of what I feel will be many more to come.
Cheers!
Some additional images from the show via Instagram:
We usually post about vape events and vape related topics - but we couldn't resist to share this article showcasing the best custom BMW bikes of 2015 - and there are some real beauties! Below are some of our favorites.
To read the full article, check out the Top BMW Custom Motorcycles of 2015.
Vape Northeast was billed as the largest vape event in the Northeast - which is the sprawling urban megalopolis that spans between New York and Boston - an area with a population of approx 30 million people! Held at Foxwoods Resort and Casino in southern Connecticut - the event was about 2 hours from Boston to the North and 3 hours to New York City to the South only an hour from Providence Rhode Island - making this a pretty easy drive for the thousands of vape shops and vape fans in the area - and the turn out didn't disappoint.
Vape Northeast was the expo we had been looking forward to for months to be able to share Cafe Racer's award winning e-liquid creations with the fine folks of New England and the mid-Atlantic states.
Once again we parachuted in a few days before the show to do a vape shop tour of the area. Visiting local shops is a great way to learn about the regional differences in e-liquid preferences, innovative shop design and what's hot in hard ware. We also really enjoy meeting the shop owners and retail staff in their stores vs just meeting them our booth. We hit about 20 shops in Rhode Island and Connecticut between Tuesday and Thursday - including a fun Vape Northeast Pre-Party at one of Cafe Racer's accounts in Bridgeport CT called Stoked.
It was great to meet up with the Stoked team and their awesome customers while enjoying some craft beer - usually paired with Lucky 13 and Lucky Bastard.
After a fun evening with the Stoked crew we headed north to Foxwoods and set up the booth and prepared for a rawkus 3 days of Vape Northeast.
We once again were able to score a great bike from a local builder. This bad boy is a 2004 Triumph that Peter from Cafe Cycles RI had been working on for a customer for 6 months. Peter specializes in hand formed metal parts for vintage motorcycles, restoration and bad ass custom builds.
The Cafe Racer Tasting Bar was pretty much slammed from the opening bell on Friday afternoon until the closing of the event on Sunday evening. We made a ton of new friends and fans and are stoked to have signed up a grip of new shops to carry our products in NH, RI, CT, NY, NJ and even a couple from outside the area including FL and KY.
We'd like to say a special thanks to Michael Wittenberg and his amazing Vape Northeast Team for hosting a great regional event. We look forward to their next event being held in Colorado later this summer.
Great to see many old friends and new - including the team from The Real Destination Vape from East Providence RI (top left), Mad Vapes Nashua NH (top right), Stoked CT (bottom left) and the one and only 2 Mod God Joey Jux (bottom right)
We once again featured Craft Beer pairing at the booth with Lucky 13 and Lucky Bastard - great beer and finely crafted e-juice - what's not to like!
The Racer Tasting Bar line-up
The team from Vapor 9 in CT - who picked up all 4 Cafe Racer flavors for their 3 awesome shops
Both tasting bars were slammed for the duration of the show
Giant Vapes sponsored the show and broke out it's awesome mega booth
Cloudy with a chance of Vape at the show stage!
Being close to the town where I grew up in Rhode Island has it's benefits - including inviting my Mom out to the show to see experience the vape world first hand.
Behind every good show there's a production manager - and Sue had a box of supplies that was stocked to the hilt to help exhibitors out with whatever we needed in a pinch. Thanks Sue and the entire Vape Northeast Team!
ECC is known throughout the vape world for throwing the biggest vape expo in Southern California every summer - last year’s ECC Pomona (see our recap of that event here) attendance was estimated at 75,000. ECC has also been putting on a series of regional shows called VPX the Vapers Exhibit - first in Niagra Falls then last fall in New Orleans (which we also exhibited at) This time around - ECC chose the motor city and we sure are glad they did - what an amazing place, vape scene and a great location in the midwest that brought vape shop owners/managers from Chicago, Ohio, Western PA and even some from New York and further.
Detroit is a city that is known for the auto industry, birthplace of techno as well as for it’s urban blight - almost declaring bankruptcy in 2014. When most people think of Detroit, many recall the film 8 Mile staring Eminem, which was actually a pretty dope film. What they don’t picture is a city that is in the midst of a rebirth - transitioning from a rust belt manufacturing center to a more modern urban city with tech companies (Quicken Loans being the biggest), hipsters on bicycles, great craft beer and a urban lofts for a fraction of what people pay in Brooklyn.
Downtown Detroit by night
Signs of Detroit's decay still abound
VPX Detroit was held March 4 - 6th. Cafe Racer’s plan was to parachute a few days before the show to check out the shops in the area. Flying in from warm and sunny southern California was a bit of a climate shock - landing in a snow storm and 24’ temperatures (- 4 Celsius). The weather only got worse on day 1 - with a major storm swinging through the area dropping 4” of snow - making driving unmanageable for this fair weather Cali dude.
When the weather broke on Wednesday, I was able to hit about 12 shops over the course of the day. Starting out in mega college town of Ann Arbor and working my way closer to the center worked out great. I even had a chance to stop at Cafe Racer Vintage Motorcyle Shop - a custom motorbike shop that we had contacted to sort out a bike to use at our booth at the show. John and Malisa, the owners, were super friendly and were also really interested in quitting smoking and starting to vape - which was a double plus - as this is always one of our primary missions to convert smokers into vapers and leave behind a legacy that will help transform people's lives.
The reception by the local vape shops to our award winning line of artfully crafed e-liquid was amazing. Highlights of the day included dropping into one of Cafe Racer’s existing accounts - Detroit Vapor and finally meeting the team there and then the last stop of the day - Metro Vapor Plus closer to downtown.
JD from Metro Vapor Plus
Metro Vapor Plus is a thriving shop. The place was packed with regulars when I stepped through the door - but the store manager and team were super friendly and when I pulled out some Cafe Racer samples they jumped at the chance to try them.
VPX Detroit was held in the mega center knows as Cobo Center. This is the same building that hosts the world famous North American International Auto Show - and it’s massive. There were approx 45 companies exhibiting - surprisingly most were based in Michigan with many of the big California based companies opting instead to do a show in Poland or opting out completely. Their loss was our gain as the show delivered a fantastic attendance for both the B2B and a terrific number of vape enthusiasts for the general admission.
The Cafe Racer team was busy from the opening bell with the tasting bar bangin’ non-stop. We picked up some fantastic local craft beer from Founders Brewing Company to do pairings at the booth with Lucky 13 and Lucky Bastard. One of Founder's flavors was even called Dirty Bastard - which was an amazing dark ruby in color and brewed with seven varieties of imported malts with hints of smoke and peat, paired with a malty richness and a right hook of hop power to give it the bad attitude that a beer named Dirty Bastard has to live up to. With an ABV of 8.5% - this was one to sip slowly but paired amazingly well with Lucky 13 and Lucky Bastard.
We made a ton of new friends at VPX and were able to sign up some new accounts on the spot - ranging local shops like Metro Vapor Plus, Hometown Vapor and others to Flavr Vapor Lounge from Lancaster, PA and Time 2 Vape from Queens, New York and even a great shop back in SoCal called Vapor Zone.
E-liquid flavor tastes tend to be regional and Detroit definitely welcomed our line with open arms - especially the tobacco based Lucky brothers as well as Peach Guzzi and Yogurt Bomb. I look forward to returning to Detroit - hopefully ECC will choose to do another VPX here next year.
Video Recap:
Here's a look at ECC's VPX Show which took Detroit by storm March 4 - 6, 2016. Cafe Racer's tasting bar was rawkin all weekend. We made lots of new friends in Detroit - amazing city and a great place for an event like this. Vape Family is everywhere! MUSIC CREDIT: Who's Afraid of Detroit by Claude von Stroke Show Website: http://www.thevapersexhibit.com/
Full recap coming soon.
RY4 is one of the oldest e-liquid flavors for vaping with a rich history and it continues to evolve as e-liquid artists update this profile with new twists.
RY4 is an umbrella term for a flavor profile that incorporates three basic component flavors: a tobacco base (usually mild and understated, but occasionally stronger and more up front), caramel, and vanilla. The caramels and vanillas are as varied as the tobacco bases. The trend has been to slowly evolve RY4 by adding other flavors to the mix, but those three are essential.
The term RY4 comes from the original e-Cig produced by the Ruyan Group Ltd. Ruyan launched the first production electronic cigarette on the market back in 2004 under the Ruyan brand. For more details on this - go to http://www.caferacervape.com/blogs/news/36962049-a-brief-history-of-e-cig-vape-design-and-evolution
Orignal Ruyan e-Cigarette Ruyan founder Hon Lik
Ruyan’s blend #4 e-Liquid was originally made by Chang Ning Dekang Biological Technology Co. for Ruyan Group Limited. The name 'Ruyan' was commonly shortened to just RY, with the blend number being placed after it, thus 'Ruyan blend #4' becomes just RY4.
There is some controversy around this - according to the Big RY4 thread on the E-cig Forum
Here's a snippet from the RY4 Forum: “The very first RY liquid was created in a single afternoon by two men: Ludo, one of the owners of Janty, and a Chinese flavor chemist, presumably working for Dekang. They started in the lab of a Dekang factory in China with some basic flavors they both agreed on and made various "test juices" tweaking the recipe along the way. After about four hours, they came up with the one they liked best, and they christened it Ruyan 4—" the name was abbreviated to RY4."
FROM A Reddit THREAD ON THIS TOPIC WITH JANTY himself WEIGHING IN
“Ruyan never had anything to do with an RY4 flavor. It was Janty who designed it with Dekang. They were the first to sell it and when other companies started buying it from Dekang and selling it. Janty used to even write to them and ask them not to call it RY4 which is why you would see it called names like Riskee Yuice. Here's an interview with the founder of Janty:
Ludo | Janty: "We were never in this for the money, we grew out of the vaping community in 2006 and the only thing that drives us is passion. We design and invent stuff, the eGo for example."
Ludo | Janty: “ Our RY4 for example is named after him. I made RY4 in the lab of Dekang on a Sunday afternoon with the chemist and called it Ruyan nr4, then I changed it to RY4. …Then it was copied, just like our eGo."
Blake | GuideToVaping: "I’m shocked! I had no clue you were the first to make ‘RY4′… nor did I know where RY4 the name came from."
Ludo | Janty: "Ah, well now you know. Ha! Ruyan nr4 because it took us 5 samples to get to the fourth one, which was the one that was the exact right formula. I knew people would love that taste. I was a heavy smoker myself you know, 2 packs a day. No more since 2006…"
Whether that’s the full back story or not, it’s suffice to say that RY4 has endured and is still a top flavor out of thousands of options now available. Much like a beer style like IPA, RY4 has many different variants and some companies even market flavors like RY5 or RY4 2.0
One of the problems with the bulk of the RY4 e-liquids on the market today is that most companies use the same 4 or 5 flavor houses to get their tobacco flavor base concentrates. These are almost always synthetic tobacco flavors and, in my opinion, and the market’s opinion, most tobacco flavors are awful. Many are quite harsh, have either a pipe or cigar tobacco flavor element or worse, a cigarette like flavor which as we all know - is putrid at best. This has caused many people to move away from tobacco flavors … but we hope to change that.
When I started Cafe Racer E-Liquid, doing a proper RY4 flavor to go with my love of craft beers was a top priority. Given that most of the commonly used tobacco flavors available were unacceptable, I made a pilgrimage to tobacco country (Carolinas, Virginia, etc) in search of a new source. After weeks of meetings and testing, I was able to find an amazing tobacco flavor that was naturally extracted Virginia tobacco and a compound of several ingredients creating a rich, smooth almost buttery tobacco that was a perfect base to build a next generation RY4 that I would love to vape.
Our Lucky 13 flavor took over 6 months to create. We played around with many different versions - sticking with the base of Vanilla, Caramel and Tobacco sounds simple but when you have hundreds of vanillas and dozens of caramels to choose from, this process takes a while. Additionally, we felt that we could improve the RY4 experience by adding some new flavors. The addition of toasted almonds was a big breakthrough - giving Lucky 13 some backbone. Additionally we added several other key ingredients for a total of, you guessed it, 13, to get the final flavor profile.
Lucky 13 launched alongside our other flavor Peach Guzzi at the World Vapor Expo in Miami on May 29, 2015. Right away the feedback was fantastic with many people saying that it’s the best tobacco flavor they have tried. More recently, Lucky 13 took the prestigious Best of Show Award at The Vape Summit IV held in Houston for the tobacco category as well as host of other awards from Expos and Vape publications globally.
We couldn’t be more stoked and proud of this updated RY4 flavor creation and are have just launched a flavor extension of Lucky 13 that features a similar base flavor profile but with a richer, stronger and more nutty tobacco experience - which we affectionally named Lucky Bastard. Lucky Bastard launched in Indonesia in early January 2016 and launched in China, and the UK in mid to late January of the same year. To date, Lucky 13 and Lucky Bastard continue to be Cafe Racer's best selling flavors.
We have taken our years of tobacco flavor experience and ported this over to Nic Salts, optimized for low wattage devices like Mi-Pod, Aspire Breeze, Suorin Air, etc - and affectional call the line Salty Bastard. Salty Bastard Tobacco provides an amazingly smooth creamy tobacco experience for these MTL devices and is already becoming a global hit.
2015 was a milestone for the vape community in many ways - Sub-ohm tanks, temp control, and the rapid expansion of vape expos both large and small. It was also a year in which many new vape expos were launched - with varying degrees of success - and a couple of outright failures.
Conceived by Mark Evans Jr, one of the founders of the super successful World Vapor Expo that takes place in Miami every June, the Orlando Vapor Show's first edition on December 11 - 12, 2015 was something of a proof of concept test for Mark and the Orlando Vapor Show Team - and we think it passed with flying colors.
At first glance, Orlando’s central Florida location for a Vape Expo is a bit of a head scratcher. When you dig a little deeper - it actually makes a lot of sense. Orlando is the #2 city in the USA for trade shows after Las Vegas. Florida’s entertainment capital, Orlando, lies just 1 hour from the Atlantic Coast and home to the famed theme parks of Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and Sea World plus a plethora of great bars and restaurants.
The Orlando Vapor Show is a good example in the industry's shift from mega shows like ECC to smaller regional shows where manufacturers, retailers and vape enthusiasts can come together and create an amazing experience while maintaining level of professionalism that we have come to expect from a well run vape expo.
The International Palms Resort and Conference Center
For this first edition, the Orlando Vapor Show was held in a fairly small location - The International Palms Resort and Conference Center . The space for the show was actually pretty limited - held in what is better described as a ballroom than true exhibit hall and that only allowed approx 30 exhibitors space to display their wares. The event sold out the exhibit space months in advance as Mark and his team have deep roots in the industry and getting brands and distributors on board was the easy part. Delivering a large audience of shop owners/managers + a good showing on the General Admissions times was the real challenge - but Mark and his team had a plan.
With vape expos popping up like weeds across the country, it’s increasingly important for these events to have a strong marketing plan to drive traffic to the show that will deliver what they promise to the exhibitors who pay thousands of dollars for booth space, travel, hotels, etc. The Orlando Vapor Expo Team knew that making their first event a success would be a lot more than “if we build it, they will come” and executed a marketing plan that delivered over 2,500 general admission guests plus 800 B2B (vape shop owners, managers and staff) attendees.
The Orlando Vapor Show marketing plan included months of outreach to B&M shops throughout central and south Florida + a pre show magazine distributed to hundreds of vape shops throughout Florida They also worked with the Florida chapter of SFADA (Smoke Free Alternatives Trade Association - http://sfata.org/ ) who organized a bus to bring around 80 people from several area shops to the show. These efforts paid off as the show was already packed by the opening bell at 10AM on Friday December 11th.
The smaller exhibit hall combined with a great turn out meant that most exhibitors were busy as hell from the opening to the closing bell. The Cafe Racer Tasting Bar was as rockin as we’ve ever been for almost all of the 2 days - sampling our award winning Lucky 13 Craft E-Liquid along with Peach Guzzi and Yogurt Bomb - delivering lots of great leads from FL shops and some nice onsite sales to consumers stoked to bring home some of our e-liquid flavor creations.
A clip our Cafe Racer's Brand Ambassador having some fun with her native Jamaican lingo
The social side of the event was impressive. Starting off with a pre-event happy hour on Thursday through two crazy nights with the crews form Vapouround Magazine, Vaping Militia and a host of other exhibitors and industry folks - we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep and drank a few too many sugary cocktails but it was well worth the time to hang with friends new and old.
Next up, Mark and his team will be hosting the 2nd Orlando Vapor Show March 25 and 26, 2016 at the much larger Central Florida Fairgrounds. The exhibit space will be double the size and with the success of the 2015 show, we would expect double the turn-out by shops and vape fans from throughout the Southeast USA.
Other vape show promoters are also adding regional shows - especially ECC under the banner of VPX - The Vape Exhibit, with expos in Detroit and rumor has it, Brooklyn this Spring/Summer. The list of vape shows in 2016 is growing by the day and it will be interesting to see how many the industry, vape shops and vape enthusiasts will support.
Special Thanks: We'd like to thank Donny Moore from Twisted Spoke Cycles in Melbourne Beach, FL for working with us to showcase his bad ass 1972 Green Machine BMW Cafe Racer at the show. We make it a point to work with local custom builders in each region where we do shows to highlight the amazing custom culture creations that these guys do for the love of building cool bikes.
As part of our recent Asian Adventure to exhibit at the China Vape Expo in Shenzhen, our crew teamed up with some old friends in Hong Kong and hit the underground party called Secret Island Party. We originally were just going to attend and hang - but were asked to set up the Racer Tasting Bar to share the vape experience and our flavors with the fine folks of Hong Kong - here's a look at this awesome event:
The first part of the trip was to take a ferry from Hong Kong to one of the many islands about 30 minutes away. The Hong Skyline from the sea was breathtaking. #YogurtBomb handcheck
Next we jumped in a local boat known as a sampan for the final leg to the mysterious Secret Island
The organizers sent out this map - which was actually fairly accurate as far as the layout and set up
Hong Kong's Jason B with a quick intro as our Sampan arrived at the beach
The beach arrival area was stunning - with camping nestled on the white sandy beach
The main area (aka center camp) had several bars, lots of food and of course, some excellent music.
Bass Music China and one cool looking Yogi
As the sun went down, things shifted to a nocturnal wonderland
We set up the Racer Tasting Bar at the stage called "The Rabbit Hole"
Surprisingly, the people of Hong Kong had very little knowledge of vaping, despite the birth of the Ecig industry less than 50 miles away in Shenzhen. They did love the concept and the Racer flavors and we hopefully turned quite a few smokers on to the idea that there's an alternative to combustion that is light years ahead of dirty old cigs.
It was a lot of fun to "share" Cafe Racer's flavors
Meanwhile, the 3,000 or so people raged on at the several stages.
Late night vape and cocktail before retiring
Daybreak by the camping area
Racer crew hangin in the shade with Steve, Louis and Pinky the Duck
Lots of interesting characters on the beach ... and one hard core acid techno guy
Big ups to the whole team from Secret Island Party and to our local hosts May and Jason for opening up the world of Hong Kong's underground music and arts scene to us ..... we can't wait to return next year!
Here are some more pics from the event organizers... enjoy
The Vape Summit is one of the longest running best run Vape Expos and in the world and it showed as they rolled out it’s 4th edition in Houston. Held from October 8 - 10 at the George R. Brown Convention Center, Vape Summit was the center of the Vape world for a few days as people came from all over the USA, Europe and Asia to see the latest, greatest in hardware as well as eLiquid creations. Cafe Racer’s experience with the Vape Summit team on all back end elements leading up to the event like registration, booth assignment and set up was top notch and a good harbinger of what was to come.
Houston is an excellent choice as a host city for a Vape Expo. It’s central Texas location with hundreds of vape shops within a 200 mile radius, easy access via the International Airport and an abundance of relatively inexpensive hotels makes this an ideal city to host an event to reach the booming Southern USA Vape market.
Once again our team reached out to a local custom cafe racer builder to share their bike with fans at our booth. Big ups to Chris Hale from Blip Workshop for awesome custom bike and for allowing us to showcase another masterpiece at our booth.
Yogurt Bomb Release, Updated 30ML Bottle Labels and Launch of flavors in 15ML Bottles
We landed at the The Vape Summit with our latest flavor creation - #YogurtBomb + an upgraded look on the 30 ML bottles (custom die cut label + foil effect on the label). Additionally we were rockin the newly released 15ML bottles for for all 3 flavors.
Vape Summit eLiquid Awards put on by Craft Vapery
We submitted all three of our craft eLiquid flavor creations to the prestigious Vape Summit eLiquid Awards curated by CRAFT Vapery. It was great to see this kind of event/award as part of the expo. It feels much more in-line with what you see at proper craft beer and wine festivals vs the usual Cloud Comps that usually are held at Vape expos.
This year, CRAFT introduced a panel of judges with a variety of experience and flavor palates to help judge the entries. This year’s panel of judges included:
Joshua Krane, Co-Founder and COO: CRAFT VAPERY
Meriwether Morris, Director of Procurement & Curation: CRAFT VAPERY; @shittywether
Roy Mananquil, Founder: Vaping ROYbot, ROYbot Sauce, Vaperazzi
Peter Nguyen, Founder: The Vape Snob; Co-Owner: The Vapor Lair
From CRAFT Vapery’s Press Release:
“We are thrilled to be able to award these incredible artisans with these Best In Show awards,” said Krane. “These are the innovators and creators we should all be looking to as industry leaders of the future, and the flavors we should all be filling our tanks with.”
To see the full list of “winners” of The Vape Summit IV Best In Show Awards are, by category - go to http://blog.craftvapery.com/craft-vapery-the-vape-summit-best-in-show-award-winners/
eLiquid submissions were made by the manufacturers weeks before the show and you had to select one of 16 flavor categories for each flavor submission. The awards were set to be announced at 3pm on the closing day of the show.
On the way to the booth on the closing day before the show opened, I was stopped by a representative from Craft Vapery who spotted the Cafe Racer logo on my shirt. They mentioned the eLiquid Awards later that day and that she STRONGLY recommended that someone from Cafe Racer be in attendance. Hmmmm. With a ton of awesome things going on at the show, I had almost forgotton about the eLiquid awards. Doh! I started to continue to walk to our booth but had to turn around and return to the Craft booth and dig for details - surely this meant that one (or more) of our flavors was going to get an award.
Turns out that Lucky 13 won the Best of Show award for the Tobacco Category. There's a rule that one company can only win one award so we are not sure if the other flavors also won their categories (Peach Guzzi for Tree Fruit and Yogurt Bomb for Creamy) - but have a strong feeling they did very well. It’s a huge honor for our entire team and our flavorist to be honored with the distinctive Best of Show award but we also feel that the rules should be amended moving forward - a win is a win - and if a company can win more than one category so be it.
The first thing I did upon hearing the news was text our flavorist who is back in California - it was only 7 am PST but i couldn’t wait to share the news with him and the team at our lab. We work really hard for months on every one of our flavors but we worked particularly hard on trying to re-invent the tobacco flavor experience by sourcing a special tobacco blend that is light years ahead of what everyone else in the industry is using.
Here's how Vape Summit broke down over the course of the 3 days:
Day 1: October 8, 2015 B2B
The opening day started off pretty quickly with vape shop owners, managers and staff started coming by the Racer booth pretty much as soon as the doors opened. Our booth location was across from our friends from GLAS and right on the main walkway of the show.
@the.vaping.vixen dropped by to take our flavors (and bike) for a spin
We also busted out our new Racer retro sign made by our super creative burning man friend Phil Spitler to help vape shops and fans spot our booth from afar among the hundreds of vendors spread out in Halls B and C. The idea was born out of the old school gas station signs and soon we'll ad a motor to have it rotate.
One thing we noticed about this show was the high quality of vape shops as well as a good mix of small to medium vape chain stores. It seems like the South has a lot more multi-shop chains than California or Florida.
The Racer Tasting Bar was busy all day long and it was awesome to get reactions and input on our 3 signature flavors Lucky 13, Peach Guzzi and the just released Yogurt Bomb . Feedback was once again amazing and we locked in some new vape shop accounts located in the South within a few hours of the show opening.
Paul Caplin, Founder and Editor from @Vapouround Magazine ready to ride
One of the highlights of the day was when team from one of our Racer retailers based in Tokyo called Vape Store M5+ unexpectedly dropped by the booth. It’s always nice to connect with our retail partners and we shared Yogurt Bomb samples and some fine Fat Tire brews with the M5+ guys.
Team from Tokyo based Vape Store M5+ enjoying some beers and #Lucky13
Day 2: October 9, 2015 B2B 10am - 5pm / General Admission 5pm - 10pm
Day 2 opened a little slowly - most likely due to many buyers and vendors hitting the fun Houston nightlife options the night before. Things gradually picked up in the early afternoon as the exhibitors started to get ready for the General Admission segment due to start at 5pm.
We had no idea of how many people to expect with the General Admission segment - but got a glimpse of what was to come when I went to grab a coffee at Starbucks and caught a peak at the 1/4 mile line of vape enthusiasts waiting in line to get in. We had given out a quite a few samples to vape shops and upon seeing the long line - had to call our warehouse in California and have them send a re-up on all 3 flavors via FedEx to be able to meet the demand of what was to sure to come.
Working a show for 12 Hours presents some challenges but with all the great energy it went by really quickly - perhaps the craft beer and wine pairing at our booth all day/evening had something to do with that.
Day 3: October 10, 2015 10am - 4:00 pm B2B + General Admission All Day
The last day of a show is always hit or miss - but Vape Summit was pretty jamming again right from the get go and the Racer Bar was rarely empty.
After a long 3 days at Vape Summit, we teamed up with our the crew from Continuous Current, who are based about 10 miles from our HQ in Encinitas, for a nice post show seafood feast and a to blow some much needed steam…or vapor in this case with a night on the town.
Click Below to see the video on Instagram as our van pulled up to the Vape Summit host hotel
Big ups to The Vape Summit Team, our account rep there Lam and to all the vape shop owners/managers and fans who came by the Racer Booth to hang. We look forward to future Vape Summit events.
As a bonus to the event - finally we saw some mainstream media coverage in the Houston Chronicle the Sunday following the event. Nice work Vape Summit!
Here are some more images from the event - enjoy.
Cafe Racer's Lucky 13 - King of the Craft
With the popularity of Rebuildable Dripper Atomizer (RDAs) and the birth of the early Rebuildable Atomizers (RBAs) for tanks over the last few years that allow people to build custom coils well into the Sub-Ohm realm, it was pretty clear that some company would take this concept and apply it to a tank with a pre-made disposable coil that was capable of delivering sub ohm performance.
First, Some Basic Vape Tech:
To simplify, Sub Ohm vaping uses much more power to spread a larger amount of heat over a much larger area, which causes more e-liquid to be vaporized in one moment. If you really want to geek out and learn more about the science of this, check out Ohm's law video - The Arduino Guide.
In a nutshell, the atomizer which powers the vapor production on a vape rig is basically a heating coil. It works because electrical resistance (the energy lost to the metaphorical “friction” on the circuit) creates heat, which can be thought of as “waste” energy.
You might assume that a higher resistance atomizer would produce more heat and therefore more vapor, but in actuality the power is more important. You can think of the resistance in the atomizer as converting a proportion of the energy flowing through the system into heat. So whilst a higher proportion is good, what’s much more important is the amount of energy flowing through the system in the first place.
With electrons flowing through the wire at a greater rate, more of them bang into stuff (encounter resistance) and produce heat. This is why power (the wattage) is the most important measure of the amount of vapor and flavor transfer you’ll get.
Whether you get the science behind the technology, or not, all that really matters is vapor production and a device that delivers the full flavor locked inside of the eLiquid you choose to vape.
Sub Ohm Vaping Moves from Hobbyists to Mainstream:
Eventually the engineers at some of the big vaporizer hardware companies caught on and got to work to replicate the experience of using an rebuildable atomizer (RBA) without the hassle and engineering know how. In 2014, Aspire released it's newest tank called the Atlantis. The Atlantis was the first Sub Ohm tank to hit the market with pre-made coils.
As a result, Sub Ohm vaping has created this new era in vaping where it doesn’t take a lot of experience to reach a high performance with much more vapor production and much better flavor delivery from e-liquids.
Leonardo DiCaprio spotted on a beach in St. Barts vaping
Sub Ohm tanks with pre-made coils have quickly established themselves as the industry’s hottest hardware segment, with companies like Aspire, Kanger, Joyetech and Smok and Herakles by Sense ( to mention just a few) all releasing their own new models over the last few months.
All of these represent an exponential leap forward in terms of vapor production and flavor clarity, delivering an experience that has historically been the exclusive purview of folks with ohm readers and spools of wire. Technologically speaking, these new tanks aren’t doing anything mind-blowing — they’re essentially taking what RDAs and RBAs have been doing for years and putting it on a production line.
So What does this All Mean for Vapers and the Industry?
Vapor Production
Sub Ohm vaping delivers much more vapor. Vapor production is a key component for a satisfying vape experience. If you’re a smoker and try vaping for the first time, you would want to experience a full hit (ie throat hit) that you can feel as well as get some nice flavor. Many of the early e-cigs failed to delivery much vapor and required a lot of patience and persistence to get a decent draw, never mind replace the experience and ritual that smokers were looking for.
Since most of the early rebuildable atomizers required quite a lot of skill to make - this wasn’t a good option for a newbie looking to switch from smoking to vaping. They typically would buy a cig-alike at a convenience store or if they were well informed - might actually seek out a vape shop to see what was available in the higher end models. The early open tank vaporizers that used cartomizers were a big leap forward from the early cig-alikes, but still didn’t deliver an experience anything near what the more advanced RDA’s could.
Photo Credit: www.vaping360.com
Enter the new Sub Ohm tanks with pre-made coils - and you have a real game changer. Now pretty much anyone with a few $’s in their pocket can walk into a Vape Shop and get an advanced sub ohm tank and battery powerful enough to safely power the coil and walk out with a high performance device that delivers heaps of vapor and lots of flavor.
Does Sub Ohm Vaping Deliver Better Flavor?
Definitely! You have access to much higher concentration of vapor and the extra power being used unlocks many of the flavor subtleties that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t using a Sub Ohm coil.
The flavor transfer is extremely intense. A good e-Liquid tastes amazing (and bad eLiquid tastes even worse). This has helped push the e-Liquid industry to work on more complex flavors that delivery an amazing range of flavors. It’s become an art form to work on not only the flavors but how those flavors mix and even the order that you experience them i.e. Cafe Racer's Peach Guzzi flavor starts off with the Peach, then you get some sweet notes from the Blueberry followed by the rich taste of Vanilla Custard - all on the inhale. On the exhale you pick up a nice refreshing hint of Green Tea. This was by design and this experience would not be possible without a more powerful (sub ohm) device.
Dropping Levels of Nicotine:
3MG is the new norm!
Many sub ohm vapers drop their nicotine level quite low as soon as they enter the Sub Ohm realm to avoid the harsh taste that nicotine delivers. Simply put, the less nicotine you use, the better your liquid will taste, especially with Sub Ohm coil performance. There is also a lot more volume of vapor being delivered with a sub ohm coil, so more nicotine is consumed, even though the percentage is less.
The most popular Nicotine level in Cafe Racer’s e-Liquid line up is 3MG - the lowest offered! This is a trend that we are hearing from almost every other e-Liquid manufacturer and all of our Vape Shop retail partners. Some e-Liquid companies are now offering 1.5MG - something unheard of just 2 years ago when the typical nicotine level for your average (non-sub ohm) vaper was between 12MG and 24MG.
Convenience:
Besides not having to deal with making your own coils (or having a builder at a vape shop make one for you) many long time vapers like the convenience of a tank over dripping. Dripping certainly has it's place but it's a bit of a pain in the ass when your driving, out with friends or working away at your latest project around the house.
Batteries
You will need a higher wattage battery or MOD to put your sub-ohm tank so look for something above 20-30 watt range. There are a ton of options out there ranging in price from $30 to $100's of dollars. The variable voltage batteries tend to dominate the market with new models and chip sets that power them coming to market weekly.
Temperature Control:
The latest trend in vaping these high powered devices is temperature control.
Temperature control is the vaping industry’s latest attempt at improving e-cig power delivery technology. As with variable wattage and variable voltage devices before them, temperature control devices promise a better vaping experience with less fuss, by measuring and limiting the temperature a coil is allowed to reach. This is something that is still unfolding and is a topic that is worthy of it's own post sometime in the near future.
For a detailed History of Vape Design and Evolution - click HERE to check out a previous post we did on this subject covering the birth of e-cigs up to the Sub Ohm RDAs.
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Note on this post:
Vaping and Vape technology can be a very complex subject. This article is a less about the tech side than about the implications of what the new technology means to vapers and the industry. We're sure we left out a lot of details on this subject and welcome your feedback on in the comments area.
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We invite you to check out Cafe Racer's line of hand-crafted e-Lliquid. We launched in May of 2015 with just 2 flavors - Lucky13 and Peach Guzzi after more than 9 months of R&D. We focus on creating amazing flavors and releasing them slowly as we continue to push the frontiers of flavor delivery and experiences. On October 2 we'll start shipping our latest flavor creation - Yogurt Bomb. Enjoy.
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It's been 3 weeks since the ECC Expo was a wrap and the vapor is still settling in Southern California.
The event was a milestone for the fast growing vape industry with eLiquid + Hardware manufacturers, Vape Distributors and key people from thousands of vape specialty retailers rubbing shoulders for 4 days along with tens of thousands of vape enthusiasts who came during the open consumer days on Saturday and Sunday. Total estimated attendance over the 4 day event was 100,000.
The Good:
With ECC Expo taking place in the heart of Southern California's "Vape Valley", many of the exhibitors pulled out all the stops and went all out on booth designs and set ups. Having a West Coast major vape event also makes it easier for overseas buyers and distributors attending from Asia - which is also experiencing rapid growth as people in countries like Indonesia, China and Japan are quickly moving away from combustible tobacco to vaping.
The Bad:
With any event at this scale, you have to expect some snafu's that will ruffle a few feathers.
In addition to hosting ECC at a new venue with 5 separate halls, mother nature decided to turn up the heat with a major heat wave that pushed daytime temps above 100 degrees for all 4 days of the show. This definitely added to the frustrations as thousands had to wait in line for up to 2 hours to gain access. There's got to be a faster way to check people's credentials/ID/registration confirmation and allow them access and I'm sure that this is a high priority for future ECC/Vape events.
With the event spread out over 5 Halls many reported frustrations in finding brands/exhibitors or even knowing that there were 5 halls to check out. Many attending didn't download the ECC App and were without any kind of map or guide to help them navigate. A simple paper map (vs the app only) would have been a big plus.
For exhibitors, many companies were not notified of their confirmed booth location until the weekend before the event, and some companies found out that they were not even placed inside one of the halls, but rather outside in tents between the halls. There were several reasons given by ECC for all the chaos around booth placement including a last minute decision by the Fire Marshall to force ECC to leave more space with so many pre-sale tickets being sold. Regardless of the reasons for this, ECC is very aware that they must get the back end exhibitor management sorted to avoid this from happening at future events.
The Vape:
Despite the heat wave, long lines at the entrance and chaotic 5 Hall Set Up, ECC was a resounding success for the industry and many brands (including Cafe Racer ) reported record orders placed at the show, hundreds of sales inquiries and new connections made - all important to moving the industry forward.
Cosmic Fog was the Premier ECC Sponsor and broke out their new mega booth. They along with hype brands like Space Jam seem to be in an arms race to see who can spend the most money and create the biggest, loudest mega hype booths possible - all to showcase the same 5 or 10 flavors of eLiquid that they've been selling for some time. This trend along with the fact that many smaller (and usually more innovative) companies were either denied the ability to exhibit or ended up with much smaller booth footprints in far flung locations does not seem like it benefits Vape Shop Buyers looking for new products, consumers or the Industry as a whole.
Many companies used ECC 2015 as a platform to launch new products. One notable was Mr Good Vape - who decided to reformulate all 12 of their flavors after receiving lab test results that detected trace amounts of Diacetyl and Acetyl Propionyl. More on this here.
ECC was also Cafe Racer's platform to launch our 3rd flavor - Yogurt Bomb, joining #Lucky13 and #PeachGuzzi as Cafe Racer's signature flavor line-up. Yogurt Bomb was a huge success at the ECC and will start shipping on or around September 16, 2015.
Innovations in Hardware and Accessories continue to come at a rapid pace. Everything from the latest temp control vaping set ups to cool accessories like Wüd - wooden skins and wraps to turn an ordinary box mods / batteries into real nice wooden boxes. It was a vapers paradise with many vendors offering great show specials and discounts for attendees.
ECC holds the distinction of being the world's largest Vape event. It's a little surprising that the event received very little media coverage from the likes of Vice or other progressive media outlets, especially with the event taking place so close to Los Angeles. Perhaps this is a good thing but at some point someone is going to break the story open and hopefully they will do this with an open mind and an agenda-less, non-biased story.
Here are a few more photos from ECC. We look forward to working with the show's organizers on future events - and it looks like ECC will be rolling into New Orleans in November - and we look forward to that and other events that the ECC team unleash around the country.
Vaping Jesus!
Here's a closing shot of Dustin Kott from Kott Motorcycles dropping off one of his custom Cafe Racer creations at ECC which we showcased at our booth.
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