Propylene glycol, glycerine and various flavor essences offer a myriad of combinations and possibilities. In Light Your Fire's juice lab, they have gone the extra mile and found that pears are needed to make an interesting tobacco flavor.
The early summer sun is shining like a torch over Uddevalla this Friday afternoon. But despite a central location two corners away from the city's main street - it's not so noticeable inside Light your fire's shop and laboratory. Here, juices are mixed as usual - e-liquids that will eventually fill both their own shelves and customers' mailboxes.
Glowing cigarette in your pocket?
A lot has happened since Christian and Pamela Brandt started their business some 13 years ago.
- The idea to make e-cigarettes came once upon a time on a smoking box at the Borealis factory down in Stenungsund almost 13 years ago, says Christian Brandt in singing Värmland.
He was there at his then job as an insulation sheet metal worker and noticed a person with slightly more unusual smoking habits.
- A gentleman stood in the doorway and pulled something out of his pocket. He took a drag and it glowed like a cigarette. Then he put it back in his pocket again. "I thought that wasn't very smart," Christian continues, smiling slightly at the memory.
This event was his first encounter with vejpning. Together with his wife Pamela, it was also the first step on the road to a very big change. In the first stage, the e-cig made the couple, who were heavy smokers at the time, hang up their cigarettes. In the next stage, they began to see opportunities for a rather unexplored, but definitely possible, business.
Betting the savings on e-cigs
With a well-balanced mix of pioneering spirit, entrepreneurship and classic curiosity, they set to work at home in one of the closets. Processes, distributors, suppliers, flavors and everything else imaginable were eagerly Googled.
- There wasn't much information available at the time, but we read everything we could find. The first capital we put in was around SEK 35,000 that we had saved up. It was a bit nerve-wracking to press the button and order then, I can say.
To cut a long story short, they soon outgrew both the closet and the garage. Pamela focused on the website and administrative chores while Christian immersed himself in the laboratory process. Propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin with various flavors turned out to hold a whole world of combinations and possibilities.
Scent was the key - not tar
In the cradle of vejp, the similarity to cigarettes was the focus. E-cigs had to look like their predecessor, cigarettes, and the vapor had to taste "like smoke".
- There was the occasional strawberry and some tutti fruit, but the focus was on tobacco. You were a smoker yourself and wanted it to taste as much like a cigarette as possible," says Christian.
He checked with various suppliers and learned that it's harder than you might think to make a mixture that tastes like tar, arsenic and burnt leaves. Perhaps not entirely desirable either. But the smell of tobacco was easier to identify," explains Christian.
- When you open a packet of tobacco, you get a certain smell, and that was close enough. That became the starting point for how it could taste," he says.
Nine tobacco essences in one taste
But back then, in 2011, they couldn't find an e-juice on the market that fit the bill. Instead, Christian continued to mix and experiment with flavors, from pH values to nuances, on his own, in the lab. The first result was the "9 Leaves" e-juice. It is still available in the Light Your Fire range. The name came from the nine different tobacco essences that formed the basis of the new flavor.
Tobacco flavor = pear and cinnamon
Here the discussion approaches a particular problem area in the policy debate around vejpning. Some opponents want the juices to taste just like "tobacco". The argument is that vejpning should not attract young people. But a tobacco flavor is actually very difficult to achieve, says Christian Brandt. It's a flavor that contains many nuances and notes that are rarely obvious. And just as a wine taster can find anything from 'cellar earth' to 'blackcurrant gum' in a glass of red wine - the taste of tobacco can hold similar surprises.
- I learned pretty quickly that if you have two flavors that are close in pH, they can cancel each other out. Then it doesn't matter how much essence you add, because if there is too much of the same thing, it will end up tasting like dish soap. "To get a pH value to 'split' a little, you may need to add a completely different flavor, such as a dash of pear or cinnamon, to get a tobacco flavor," says Christian.
"Politicians think it's easy"
And to tone down the pear, in turn, a little cocoa may be needed, or perhaps something nutty. It's a complicated process.
- But if you were to ban all flavorings and essences or limit what can be in an e-juice - how the hell could you make a tobacco flavor? Politicians sit in their sandbox and want to decide and think that "tobacco is just tobacco, it can't be that big a deal". You're actually a bit taken aback.
Testing everything - again and again
Christian Brandt often develops four or five variants of a new juice flavor he wants to create. The staff then test as many as they can. The one that appeals most "goes on", and possibly the same procedure is repeated. And again. His wife Pamela, who is not actually taking part in this interview, adds that Christian spent almost eight months working on the "Cream custard" flavor before they were satisfied.
The walls covered in flavors
Nils Tisell now also works in the actual laboratory, which is located in the basement under the shop in Uddevalla. White coats and carefully sprayed hands are the order of the day. Hygiene is of the utmost importance, as in all laboratories.
- "Nowadays I've probably lost my touch a bit. Now it's Nils I'm chasing after in the lab instead of new flavors," Christian says jokingly.
The shelves along the walls are covered with different bottles, filled with 100s of flavor essences. Here and there is some device that you need to be familiar with the process to understand what it does - and on the computer in the corner, various recipes are picked out to be made. When they are not experimenting with something new.
Want to stay small
Unlike many other "juice factories", Light Your Fire only makes its own e-juices. It is otherwise common for labs to work with multiple brands and make e-liquids under license from both large and small players.
- It has never really occurred to us to do so. We've always stood on our own two feet, and we want to continue to do so. We pick up many other flavors and brands in the store. But, not to brag or anything, we find that a lot of our customers like the e-juice that we make ourselves," says Christian Brandt.
Text and photo: Christian Egefur
Facts: Light Your Fire
- Owned and operated by Christian and Pamela Brandt in Uddevalla
- Started as a project alongside their 'regular' job in 2011, it quickly grew out of the closet, garage and leave of absence into a full-time job.
- Today, the company has both a shop and a laboratory on Lagerbergsgatan in Uddevalla, but also has a larger shop on Hisingen in Gothenburg.
- Manufactures and sells its own e-juice lines Explorers, The House Juices, Skrock and the new addition Mumma.
Luckily, the "taste ban" was not introduced in Sweden. The anti-nicotine lobby probably takes the prize when it comes to fanaticism and unreasonableness even if it is also e.g. among some vegans, porn opponents and pro-Palestine and pro-Israel activists. Even the RNS with their hatred of cannabis are quite fanatical, rabid and unscientifically religious.