After a bit of experimentation today, I'm pretty sure I've found the secret to Pumking. The graham cracker flavor many attribute to the beer has always sounded a bit off to me. While I can see how people could describe it that way, a much better descriptor for me would be cap'n crunch cereal, as I've mentioned before. But what flavor extract do you use to get that cap'n crunch flavor? That was the big question. I'd spotted a butter and nut flavoring on a website last year and thought that might be somewhat close, but I didn't want to order up a bottle just on that hunch. But that flavoring is exactly what I saw when walking around the grocery store today. It's called "Vanilla butter and nut" flavoring, so I picked up a bottle to experiment with since it was only a few bucks. Undiluted, it smells just like buttercream frosting. Like cupcakes or something, basically. But when diluted in a beer, it has that exact same aroma as pumking. And it does the same thing to the flavor.
This stuff is STRONG, though. Like 1 drop in 12 oz is too much, strong. I recommend some of you do what I did and pick up a bottle to experiment with. I added it to my cream ale at about a drop per 12 oz and it was too strong. When I had drunk that mostly down I topped it off again with cream ale and that's when it seemed just right. You basically want to dip the tip of a toothpick in the stuff and swirl that around in your glass to get the right amount. But when you hit the right amount, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. I think this will get you closer to that Pumking flavor than anything else you can do.
