Juice Review: Intellicig-USA RIZe Kamel

Seems like every vendor has a Camel clone. Fair enough, dry, mellow Turkish tobacco with an analog-like throat hit is appealing. There are a lot of these juices out there. These juices are usually worthy contestants in the Analog Replacement Sweepstakes, if the vendors can manage to keep them from tasting like peanut.

It should be evident by now that I like straying from the beaten path to find quality juice that no one is talking about. Last week I noticed RIZe juice from Intellicig-USA for the first time, and the flavors sounded promising. Always on the lookout for cigar and pipe vapes, they offered both. It was like they knew exactly how to trap me. So I placed a four bottle test order, which incidentally arrived amazingly quick, and this is the first one that I've sat down with.

To date, the best straight Turkish vape I've had is Digitalciggz.com's Turkish Tech. That thick, honey like juice is my benchmark for Turkish tobacco vapes. I am down to my last two drops, but thankfully there will be some in my mailbox tomorrow. It's been my constant companion in my PV case when I'm away from home since I reviewed it, and it almost won a Vapenstein It's Alive! Award.

Without further adieu let's adjourn to The Lab and put this Intellicig-USA RIZe Kamel juice through some tests. I will be vaping this 24mg PG blend on my Hot Vapes Bombshell at 3.7v.

First off, these RIZe juice bottles only come in 10ml, and are of a white plastic variety I've never seen before. Think taller and skinnier like a standard clear hard plastic 10ml bottle, except these have a long needle tip that terminates in a ball. You have to use a knife or a scissors to cut the end off. They're good looking bottles, as plastic goes, with color printed labels depicting the flavor and strength.

The nose of this juice is very dry and has a note of perfume.

The flavor on inhale is dry, dry, dry Turkish tobacco. It's positively arid. There is a nice roasted note to the tobacco, and it has that characteristic Turkish body. For those unfamiliar, Turkish tobacco is dry, mellow and has a warmth that is somewhere between roasted leaf and nut. Not nutty like a 555, but the closest association I can ascribe to it is nut. It's one of the reasons I, and probably others, are so fond of Turkish tobacco. It's full and rich without a trace of harshness. The throat hit of this juice is very good, above average even for a tobacco vape. 

The flavor on exhale reveals a softer finish to the more aggressive inhale. Not as rich and full as my benchmark Turkish tobacco, but this is a very good interpretation. In fact, it's probably closer to the real thing. None of the perfume that makes an appearance in the nose of this juice comes through in the flavor, which is a good thing. I detect tobacco absolute in this juice, and it imparts a tolerable amount of ash tray to the finish. There is also a very subtle, lingering sweetness. The sweetness doesn't come across as sweetener, it's well integrated and is consistent to what the natural sugar in fermented tobacco would produce. Overall, the finish is very analog-like. Vapor production of this juice is slightly below what I would consider average for a PG blend.

So my overall verdict for this juice is that it is a welcome entry to the Analog Replacement Sweepstakes. Intellicig-USA RIZe Kamel pretty much hits the nail on the head, and while it isn't my favorite interpretation of Turkish tobacco, it is a well executed contender. Readers looking for an analog-like vape that hits with analog-like impact could do far worse than this juice.

***updated 28Mar2011

as the time I spent with this juice went by, it developed an off-putting characteristic I can only describe as "insecticide".  Readers may be better off with one of the other Turkish tobacco vapes that have been reviewed on Vapenstein.