For a very long time, New York City had been a veritable vaping wasteland. In a sprawling metropolis like the Big Apple, a city burdened with a smoking rate close to 16%, how was it possible that vaping had not yet made any serious headway with the citys smokers as late as 2013? Enter the Henley Vaporium (among others), a hip vaping lounge looking to turn the citys smokers into vapers. I spent most of my childhood (and early adulthood) less than an hours drive from Manhattan, so I often found myself riding Metro North into the city to grab a slice, people watch for a couple hours, and catch a band later on in the evening.

So the opening of the Vaporium, an event that garnered national media attention, was something I followed closely, with great interest. When Henley contacted me about a series of reviews for their own line of liquids, I jumped at the chance, and hoped that their product would prove to be as prime as the real estate that housed their SoHo Vaporium.

When the package from Henley arrived, I gave them the usual steep I give every juice before beginning the review. With that process completed I opted to begin with this juice, Psychotherapy. The flavor description on the bottle is that of a profile I have not previously seen, doughnut/cronut. For those who arent familiar with a cronut, it is the creation of famed pastry chef Dominique Ansel one of the most innovative pastry chefs in the country, earning the nickname the Willy Wonka of NYC. Like a croissant, the cronut is made from a laminated dough which involves folding and encasing butter in between layers of dough, which are then layered on top of each other through a folding and turning process.

The dough is then treated much like a doughnut, fried, cream filled, and coated in a sweet, sugary glaze. The whole pastry is an exercise in decadence, and one that people will pay an exorbitant amount of money to get between their lips.

With all that said, I was eager to get myself a taste of Henleys take on the oft duplicated, instant-classic pastry, so I grabbed the bottle, my Duke, and topped it with my Helios. From the first taste I was a bit underwhelmed…now, there is nothing innately bad about this juice, but there is nothing extraordinary here either. Its a sweet juice, seemingly based around a brown sugar/caramel foundation, with a touch of vanilla. At lower wattage, it reminds me of a dessert-like RY4 without the tobacco component, but even looking at it from that perspective, Im not nearly as impressed as I had hoped I would be.

While I havent had the pleasure of basking in the glory of a genuine cronut, I have a hard time believing the genuine McCoy is as sweet as Henleys Psychotherapy. Part of being a truly magnificent pastry chef is balancing the sweetness against the savoriness of any particular creation. This juice however leans heavily on the sweet, without leaving enough room for the bread-y, satiating, savory goodness, which would add the necessary element to produce the harmonious sweet/savory equilibrium. The bread-like component is there, reminiscent of french toast or brioche, and by upping the wattage on my Duke (north of 42w), I did get a more satisfactory ratio, but even then, the bread-like portion of the profile is unable to gain as much traction as Id hoped to see from a blend of this nature.

All said, the juice seems to perform much better in high wattage rigs. I had it in both the Duke at 42w and my Nemesis topped with a .35Ω Atomic which yielded 39-45w (3.7-4v) and the juice was good enough, but it became a bit cloying to me after more than 45 minutes or so. With the ProVari/510 dripping atomizer I cranked it up to 5.4v with a 2.5Ω atty yielding 11.6w. This produced a similar profile to the high wattage rig with a fairly mild throat hit and good (but not outstanding) vapor production.