The search for a damn good apple pie gave Thomas Dallmann a lasting hobby - which in turn generated a thriving business and a welcome extra income. In the process, both he and his wife became smoke-free, along with those friends and acquaintances who had become curious about vejpning and e-cigarettes.
You may find well-stocked vejp shops with a wide range of products in the larger cities. But it is in a residential area just outside little Tranemo that you find Liquid Wonders.
The roads leading to it wind their way, as roads to residential areas tend to do. Thomas Dallmann has lived here more or less all his life, and the family, which besides Thomas and his wife Therese, consists of three children and two dogs, has lived in this particular house for about ten years now.
"We like it here very much. It makes it much nicer to go into a big city when you do. It makes it more exciting. But I've never had any desire to live like that," says Thomas, as the dogs still jump wildly against the fence and bark at the intruding reporter. They are Chihuahuas and inherently eager - but they calm down and become friendly as soon as they are greeted, smelled and petted.
Industrial worker with a wide range of hobbies
"I was very tired of school during my school years and became an industrial worker, and that's all I've done in my working life. But then I've always had hobbies on the side instead. I've always liked music and played guitar in bands and by myself at home and so on. Then I got into car care and did that for a while. So it was a hobby, not a business or anything like that," Thomas continues as he sets out coffee and buns.
In 2016, Thomas was just over 30 years old and had been smoking since he was 12 or 13 years old.
"I probably smoked fifteen or sixteen cigarettes a day. I even had headaches all the time in the last few years. I can't swear it was the cigarettes, but it feels like it because it went away pretty quickly once I managed to quit," says Thomas.
That evening, eight years ago, he was at some kind of event in Tranemo and met a friend who had bought a vejp.
"It was one of those old Eleaf melo kits and in it he had a really good apple pie flavour. I couldn't put it down and I really thought it was delicious. I didn't realise e-cigarettes could taste so good and yes... it was the best I had ever tasted! It was better than real apple pie," says Thomas with a laugh.
The very next day, he jumped in the car and drove the 20+ kilometres round trip to Gothenburg. At that time it was even harder to find pure vejpshoper, but in Gothenburg LYF had a newly opened shop.
"I was just so damn keen," laughs Thomas.
Pie flavour better than both patches and chewing gum
In the Gothenburg shop he bought the same kit as his friend had and, of course, the same apple pie flavour. It was from a brand called Liquid State and the flavour was called Apple Butter. That combination did something that neither nicotine patches nor chewing gum had done before. Getting Thomas to quit smoking.
"Nothing like that worked for me, so I started again just as quickly. I wanted to keep the feeling, after all."
The cigarettes were then phased out over a two-week period or so. They simply became less and less appealing and since then neither Thomas nor Therese have smoked at all.
She had managed to keep up with the cigarettes during the times she was pregnant, but always fell back afterwards. But even she got on the vejp train and managed to quit for good.
Expensive with ready-mix
Not long after the trip to Gothenburg, Thomas started to geek out. Driven by both the feeling that it was getting a bit too expensive to buy ready-mixed and a certain desire to experiment, he started buying essences, hanging out on forums to learn - and mixing his own flavours.
- I emailed different shops and got bulk discounts if I bought a lot of bottles, and then I started buying flavourings and it kind of grew.
Did you try to make your own apple pie right away?
"Haha. Yes, that was the one I was chasing. And it's probably the flavour I've been working with the longest. I've honestly never nailed it completely. You quickly learn that you can't copy a recipe no matter how much you google and try. I've probably brought home every apple flavouring you can find, from every manufacturer. But I managed to make my own apple pie that I was happy with in the end!"
Friend fixed the webshop
Today, Thomas has over 1500 different essences that he is experimenting and testing with. Not just for apple pie, of course, but his own company Liquid Wonders has built up a substantial range of its own.
The company started sometime in 2017 and came about because Thomas had an acquaintance who was a shark in online shopping.
"He made me an online shop, and it still looks pretty much the same. I'm just glad it works because I'm not an expert in that."
And that's the way it is. Thomas built up a loyal customer base online and today some larger stores like Vapes buy his range and sell it on in stores. However, if you go directly to the Tranemo guy, you can specialise your orders based on how much sweetening and cooling you want in your chosen juice.
Work-life balance
In his day job, Thomas is a machine operator at the glass company Ardagh, and Liquid Wonders is managed in his spare time. He certainly has plenty of it as he works a type of shift work that means a lot of work on the weeks he works, but also a lot of time off the other weeks. On the whole, he is happy with the arrangement.
"It would be great to be able to live off the company. But at the same time, I work full time and want to have some free time for other things too. And I have children and dogs. It's a small bonus income, even though I reinvest most of it in the company and develop new flavours. Many people probably don't realise that it costs several thousand to develop a new flavour, so I just think it's nice that it's going around."
If he wanted to make Liquid Wonders bigger, it would probably need its own physical store, and the demand for such stores may not be at the top of the wish list in a municipality the size of Tranemo.
"There's also so much politics around it, with new stricter laws and bans on marketing and so on. So I'm one of the cowards who don't dare to go all out," Thomas laughs.
Well-tested supply
Eight years into flavour mixing and vejp entrepreneurship, Thomas has finally left the taste of apple pie behind. At least now and then.
"I've actually been more of a bakery guy. I've usually stuck to different bakery juices. But it goes in periods and I switch a lot between sweets, fruit and bakery."
Thomas's shift is then reflected in the Liquid Wonder range for customers.
"Usually when I release a new flavour, I've already vejped it myself, because I've been working on it for so long. So the ones that are released are well tested."
