Vampire Vape Review (2026) | Vape Daily

Plenty of juice brands ignite hard for a season and then vanish. A handful actually stick the landing. Vampire Vape is in that second camp, no debate. Over a decade in the game, still on the shelf, still firing – and still riding the wave of one absolute monster of a flavour called Heisenberg that basically spawned its own copycat genre. Walk into any UK vape shop and those black gothic bottles are right there, fangs out, daring you to grab one. This Vampire Vape review rips through the whole 2026 line-up: who they are, where they came from, what Heisenberg actually tastes like, how the salts, 50/50 and shortfills hit differently, which flavours land and which fizzle, the proper pros, the real cons, how they punch up against Riot, Dinner Lady and ELFLIQ, and what you will pay before and after the new duty kicks down the door. No fluff. No copy-paste blurb. Straight talk for adult vapers working out if Vampire Vape earns a slot on the bench.

What is Vampire Vape?

Vampire Vape is a British juice maker, and one of the few originals still standing. It fired up in the early days when the UK vape scene was basically a bunch of independent mixers blasting batches in the back of corner shops. Most of those names got swallowed, got bought out, or got crushed by the regulations. Vampire Vape kept the lights on. That matters. The UK liquid market has been a meat-grinder, and powering through from the wild years, through TPD in 2016, and into the duty-loaded jungle of 2026 takes a proper product and a loyal crowd. Vampire Vape brought both.

The whole brand identity is built on the name. Black bottles, blood-red trim, fangs, bats, flavour titles that lean into the vampire shtick – it is theatrical and it works. Where loads of brands looked dated within a year, this one has aged surprisingly well. Behind the styling is a serious mixing operation though. Everything is made in the UK, properly notified, and that British provenance is a big tick for plenty of buyers. Vampire Vape did not build its name on shock value or hype. It built it on the same bottle tasting the same in 2024 as it did in 2018, which is rarer than you might think.

Worth being clear on what kind of outfit this is. Vampire Vape is a juice specialist, full stop. No hardware empire, no disposable gold-rush chase, no fresh pod kit dropping every month. The whole business is making liquid. That focus is exactly why the range feels tight instead of all over the shop. Loads of brands dilute themselves across twenty different product lines. Vampire Vape stayed in its lane and built a deep, well-sorted catalogue across the formats real adult vapers actually use – small salt bottles for pods, bigger shortfills for sub-ohm rigs.

The other massive thing in this brand's DNA is the cultural blast radius of one single juice. Most companies would burn a year of marketing budget to have a flavour as well-known as Heisenberg. For a stretch, Heisenberg was not just one Vampire Vape blend – it was the blend, cloned to death by every brand chasing the same lightning. That fame is a double-edged fang. It lit the brand up worldwide, but plenty of buyers still only know Vampire Vape for that one bottle and never crack the rest. Part of this piece is putting Heisenberg in its place and showing what else is loaded into the catalogue.

Standard line, because it always matters. Vampire Vape liquids carry nicotine, nicotine is addictive, and these products are strictly for adult vapers aged 18 and over who already vape. Nothing about the gothic theme or the brand's history changes that. This review judges the range as a consumer product for grown-up nicotine users – pure taste, build quality, value, and how it performs in real kit.

Heisenberg and the signature hitters

No talking about Vampire Vape without leading with Heisenberg, so let us light it up. Heisenberg is the flagship, the calling card, and one of the genuinely big icons in UK vaping history. The brilliant bit is that you cannot pin it down in plain words, which is exactly why it caught fire. Underneath the hood it is a chilled, mixed-berry blend – dark and red fruits tangled together – sitting on a crisp coolness, with a faint herbal aniseed thread running through the back. The result is fruity without being a sweet-shop bomb, cold without going full menthol, and weird enough that it does not taste like anything else on the shelf. People call it berry, mint, candy, a hint of liquorice – all of them are kind of right, which tells you how layered the build is.

Heisenberg blew up because it landed in a sweet spot almost by accident. It is an all-day liquid that does not fry your palate the way a heavy dessert or a syrupy fruit can. The ice keeps every puff fresh, the berry brings character, and the mystery back-note keeps it from ever getting dull. It plays nicely in basically any device at any sensible strength. For a huge number of vapers it became the bottle they always kept a spare of, and that loyalty is the foundation the whole brand stands on. It got cloned to ribbons – you have seen the "blue" and "mystery" knock-offs from a dozen rivals – but the original still holds up, and a lot of long-time fans reckon nobody else has properly nailed it.

Heisenberg is not the only classic in the locker. The other name that keeps coming up is Pinkman, a brighter, juicier counterpart that throws sweet and tangy mixed fruits into the glass – soft summer berries plus citrus with a mouth-watering kick. Where Heisenberg is cool and cryptic, Pinkman is bright and easy, and the two together cover a stack of taste preferences. It is built to be liked on the first puff, and it has earned its own fanbase, especially with vapers who find Heisenberg a bit too cold or a bit too strange for their liking.

Then there is Cool Red Lips, another long-running member of the squad. Sweet red-fruit profile with a chilled finish – think candied cherry and berry meets ice, sitting right between pure fruit and full menthol. It feels both familiar and just distinctive enough to stand on its own, and it rounds out the trio of signatures most people associate with the brand. Between Heisenberg, Pinkman and Cool Red Lips you get a fair read on the Vampire Vape house style: fruit-led, often with an ice element, rarely sickly, and almost always built for all-day use rather than as a one-off treat. These three are the obvious launch pads for anyone new to the brand, and every one of them has earned its slot.

The range: nic salts, 50/50 and shortfills

One thing that keeps Vampire Vape in the fight is that it sells its flavours across the three formats that cover basically every kind of adult vaper. Knowing the difference is the single best move you can make before buying, because slamming the wrong format into the wrong device is the fastest way to be disappointed with a perfectly good juice. The three are nic salts, 50/50 freebase and shortfills, and each one is built for a different style of hit.

Nic salts come in 10ml bottles, usually at 10mg and 20mg, with 20mg being the UK legal ceiling. Salt nic is a smoother form of nicotine that lets you run a high strength without the sandpaper throat hit you get from the same number in freebase. That smoothness is exactly why salts are tailor-made for small, low-power MTL (mouth-to-lung) pod kits – the compact, draw-on-the-mouthpiece devices most people carry every day. If you are running a pocket pod and you want a strong nicotine kick that goes down easy, nic salts are the answer ninety percent of the time. Vampire Vape stocks a big slice of its catalogue, including Heisenberg, in salt form, and that is the version most pod users will end up buying.

50/50 freebase liquids also land in 10ml bottles, and the name refers to the split of the two base ingredients – equal PG and VG. That balance is the classic all-rounder: enough PG for proper throat hit and sharp flavour delivery, enough VG to push out a decent puff of vapour without going gloopy. Freebase 50/50 suits the same kind of MTL kits and starter devices as salts, but it serves up nicotine in its old-school form, which lands a firmer punch at the same strength. Some vapers genuinely prefer the bite of freebase, particularly anyone who has been at it for years and likes the hit to feel proper. The 50/50 line is there for them. It is the format that bridges the old-school days and the modern pod era.

Shortfills are for the big-battery crowd. These are larger bottles – commonly 50ml of liquid in a 60ml bottle, though sizes shift – sold at 0mg nicotine with headroom deliberately left up top. The play is that you drop in a separate nicotine shot (usually an 18mg or 20mg 10ml booster) yourself, taking the bottle up to a low working strength suited to high-volume vaping. Shortfills are typically higher in VG, which makes them perfect for sub-ohm and DTL (direct-to-lung) setups – the bigger, cloud-blasting kits and tanks. If you are running a powerful device and you love lungfuls of vapour, shortfills are the smart, flexible choice and let you mix your own strength. They are the worst pick for a tiny pod kit, where the high VG and low strength will leave you flat and gurgling.

Short version: small pod, want a strong easy kick – grab nic salts. Small kit but you want that classic firmer hit – 50/50. Big sub-ohm cloud cannon – shortfill plus a nic shot. Match the juice format to the hardware and any Vampire Vape flavour will perform. For a proper deep dive on the numbers, our nicotine strength guide breaks down exactly how the milligram readings translate into real-world satisfaction.

UK rules: strengths, bottle sizes and the 2026 duty

Buying e-liquid in the UK means buying inside a strict ruleset, and Vampire Vape, like every compliant outfit, builds its products around those limits. Knowing the rules helps you understand why the bottles look the way they do and why you cannot just buy a litre of 30mg juice.

Two headline limits do the heavy lifting: strength and bottle size. Nicotine-containing e-liquid is capped at 20mg per millilitre – legal ceiling, full stop, which is why no compliant UK juice goes higher. Any nicotine-containing e-liquid also has to be sold in bottles no bigger than 10ml. That is exactly why Vampire Vape's nic salts and 50/50 liquids all show up in those small 10ml bottles – it is not a marketing call, it is the law. On the kit side, any tank or pod holding nicotine juice is capped at 2ml capacity. Those rules together are why the modern vape experience is constant little refills rather than one big fill-and-forget tank.

Shortfills are the clever workaround that keeps high-strength bulk buying off the table while letting sub-ohm vapers still buy in proper volume. Because a shortfill is 0mg nicotine, it does not get classed as a nicotine-containing product, so it can ship in a bigger bottle. You then drop in a 10ml nic shot to take it up to working strength. Fully legal, widely used, and the reason the bigger Vampire Vape bottles exist at all.

The big incoming hit is the new Vaping Products Duty. From 1 October 2026, a duty of £2.20 per 10ml of e-liquid lands across the UK. It is a flat, per-volume tax and it applies no matter the nicotine strength, which means even 0mg shortfills get caught. Real-world result: prices go up that day. A 10ml nic salt you pick up for a few quid today is going to carry an extra £2.20 of duty, and a bigger shortfill takes a proportional hit based on volume. If you are reading this before October 2026, it is worth baking that into your buying calls – plenty of vapers are expected to stock up sensibly ahead of the change, though juice has a shelf life, so do not go full doomsday prepper. We cover the whole duty story in detail on the e-liquids page and across the wider site. Either way, the strength and bottle-size rules above are not budging, so the fundamentals of how you actually buy and run Vampire Vape stay the same.

Vampire Vape flavours

The Vampire Vape catalogue is broad enough that it makes more sense to break it down by style rather than march through bottle by bottle. Fruit and cooling blends are where the brand lives, but there is more variety than the casual buyer clocks. Below the range is broken into four loose families, with a few straight-talk picks in each. Bear in mind that exact availability shifts and not every flavour exists in every format, so always double-check whether the one you want comes as a salt, a 50/50 or a shortfill before you hit the buy button.

Fruit

This is the engine room and where Vampire Vape is at its most reliable. Pinkman is the headline act – that bright, tangy mixed-fruit-and-citrus blast described earlier – and it is the one to fire up first if you want an easy, juicy, crowd-pleasing fruit. Beyond it sits a rotating cast of single and mixed fruit profiles across berries, tropicals and orchard styles. The house style on fruit leans ripe and slightly candied rather than bone-dry realistic, so if you like a fruit that hits generous and full rather than sharp and clinical, this is your zone. For an all-day fruit that is not too sweet, Pinkman is still the safest punt in the whole catalogue.

Menthol and ice

Cooling is a Vampire Vape specialty, and the menthol-and-ice family is where the brand really flexes. Heisenberg technically rides the line between fruit and ice, but its cool spine makes it a natural anchor here too. Around it sit cleaner menthol and iced-fruit blends – cold berry, iced fruit, crisp menthol options – for vapers who want that refreshing chill. The ice levels are well dialled in: properly cold and satisfying without tipping into the eye-watering, throat-numbing extremes some brands chase. If you came off menthol cigarettes, or you just love a cold puff, this family is your starting point. Heisenberg and Cool Red Lips are the obvious gateways.

Dessert and sweet

Vampire Vape is not famous for desserts the way some rivals are, but the sweeter side of the catalogue is still worth a look if your palate runs that way. Expect sweet-shop and confectionery-style hits – candied, fizzy, retro-sweet stuff – rather than the heavy custard-and-bakery zone that brands like Dinner Lady made their name in. Vampire Vape sweets tend to be playful and bright, not rich and indulgent. They make decent occasional vapes and good palate-switchers, though most vapers find the fruit and ice lines lock in better for all-day use. If you want a sweet hit without going full pudding, this section scratches it.

Aniseed and unusual

This is the most distinctive corner of the locker, and it is where Vampire Vape's character properly bites. The brand has never been shy about the aniseed and liquorice family – flavours with that cool, slightly medicinal, grown-up edge that you either love or run from. Nothing childish or generic about this section; it is aimed squarely at adult palates that want something more complex and old-school. The faint aniseed thread hidden in Heisenberg hints at it, but the dedicated aniseed and unusual blends go all in. If you are the kind of vaper who finds most modern juice too sugary and want something with bite and intrigue, start here. It is a genuinely different offering and few mainstream brands will match it.

Nic salt vs freebase: which to choose

This is the call that trips up more new vapers than any other, and getting it right makes a bigger difference to your satisfaction than the flavour you pick. The choice between nic salt and freebase nicotine boils down to how the nicotine is chemically delivered, what kind of throat sensation you want, and most importantly what device you are running.

Nic salt nicotine is processed so it absorbs smoother and faster, with way less throat harshness at any given strength. That means you can hit a 20mg salt comfortably without feeling like you are gargling gravel. Salts are engineered for low-power MTL pod kits – small, tight-draw devices that sip a little juice at modest wattage. The combo of high strength plus smooth delivery makes salts the natural pick for anyone chasing a strong, satisfying, cigarette-style hit from a discreet device. If you have recently come off smoking and you are on a pod kit, a 20mg Vampire Vape nic salt is almost certainly the right starting point.

Freebase nicotine, including Vampire Vape's 50/50 line, delivers nicotine in its classic form, throwing a firmer, more pronounced throat hit at the same number. Plenty of long-term vapers actually prefer that sensation – it feels more "there" – and for them freebase 50/50 in a pod or starter kit is the right play. Freebase also rules the higher-power world: shortfills are freebase liquids at low strengths, built for sub-ohm DTL kits where you are pulling far more vapour and so you need way less nicotine per millilitre to get satisfied.

On strength, rough guidance goes like this. Heavy ex-smokers and people on small pod kits usually land best on 20mg salts; lighter users or anyone who finds 20mg too intense often settle on 10mg salts. Vapers on bigger sub-ohm kits run far lower – commonly 3mg to 6mg – because the vapour volume itself is delivering plenty of nicotine even at low concentration. Slam a high-strength salt into a sub-ohm device and you will hate life; drop a low-strength shortfill into a tiny pod and you will be hammering it constantly and still feel unsatisfied.

The golden rule is to match the nicotine type and strength to the device. Small kit, want strength and smoothness – 10mg or 20mg salts. Small kit, want a firmer classic hit – 50/50 freebase. Big cloud kit – low-strength shortfill. If you are still picking your hardware, our guide to the best refillable vape kits for beginners pairs neatly with this and will help you lock in a device that matches the juice you actually want.

Flavour quality and performance

A brand can have a banging back-story and still pump out average juice, so how does Vampire Vape actually deliver in the tank? Honestly, well – and that is the real reason it has lasted. The defining quality of the whole range is consistency. Across formats, across years, the flagship flavours taste the way they are supposed to, batch after batch. That reliability is properly valuable: when you reorder a bottle of Heisenberg, you know exactly what is landing, which is more than you can say for some brands whose juice drifts or whose quality control wobbles between production runs.

On flavour accuracy, the fruit and cooling blends are the strongest performers. The ice work is particularly well done – fresh and clean rather than artificial or numbing – and the signature flavours carry a depth and balance that explains why they have stuck around. Heisenberg in particular rewards repeat vaping; its layered build means it does not flatten out or bore the palate the way simpler juices do. The fruits land generous and rounded, the menthols come through crisp, and the aniseed blends carry proper character. Where the range is slightly less remarkable is in the sweet and dessert column, which is solid but not class-leading next to specialists in that style.

On device performance, the salts behave exactly the way good salts should in pod kits: smooth, satisfying, no harshness even at 20mg. They wick fine, the flavour comes through cleanly at typical pod wattage, and there is no off-putting peppery edge. The shortfills, being higher in VG, blast out good vapour in sub-ohm setups and carry their flavour cleanly at the lower strengths they are built for. Throat hit matches the format – gentle in the salts, firmer in the 50/50, mellow in the shortfills – and coil life is unremarkable in a good way, meaning the juices are not unusually sweet or dark in a way that gunks up coils faster than they should. Nothing about how Vampire Vape liquids behave will surprise or annoy an experienced vaper; they are well-made, well-mannered juices that do the job. That dependability, more than any single headline flavour, is why the brand is easy to recommend.

Vampire Vape pros

Loads of brands look fire on paper. Here is where Vampire Vape genuinely earns the slot, based on what actually matters when you are vaping it day in, day out.

• One genuinely iconic flagship. Heisenberg is one of the most loved e-liquid flavours the UK has ever launched, and it is still on fire today – layered, refreshing and endlessly vapeable. Owning the original of a flavour the whole market has tried to clone is a real edge.
• Long-standing, trusted British brand. Vampire Vape has survived more than a decade in a punishing market, mixes in the UK and ships compliant. That track record brings a level of trust newer, flashier outfits cannot fake.
• Properly consistent. Flavours taste the same batch after batch, year after year. When you reorder, you know exactly what is in the bottle, which is more valuable than vapers usually realise.
• Big fruit and cooling game. This is the brand's core, and it delivers. The fruits land generous, the menthols crisp, and the ice is dialled in rather than overcooked.
• Every useful format covered. Nic salts for pods, 50/50 for that classic throat hit, shortfills for sub-ohm rigs – the brand has a product for basically every adult vaper regardless of kit.
• Distinctive, grown-up flavours. The aniseed and unusual blends offer something genuinely different in a market drowning in the same sweet fruits. For palates that want intrigue rather than sugar, that is a real selling point.
• Sensible, satisfying nic salts. Smooth at 20mg, wick well and carry flavour cleanly in pod kits, doing exactly what a good salt should without any peppery harshness.
• Reasonable everyday pricing. Vampire Vape sits in the affordable mainstream bracket, which keeps it usable as an all-day juice rather than a once-in-a-while treat.
• Memorable, well-aged branding. The gothic styling is fun, distinctive and has held up far better than a lot of the over-designed branding that flooded in later. Easy to spot on the shelf, easy to remember.

Vampire Vape cons

No brand is flawless, and an honest review has to cover the weak points as well as the strengths. None of these are deal-breakers, but worth clocking before you buy.

• Over-reliance on one famous flavour. Heisenberg casts such a long shadow that the rest of the range gets overlooked. Some buyers never push past it, and a few of the deeper-catalogue blends are less memorable than the headline acts.
• Dessert and sweet flavours are just fine. If you live for rich custards, bakery and full-on dessert vapes, Vampire Vape is not the specialist for you. That corner of the catalogue is solid but not class-leading.
• Marmite flavours in the aniseed family. The distinctive aniseed and liquorice blends are a genuine strength for some and an instant no-thanks for others. Not crowd-pleasers, and first-timers should approach carefully.
• Heisenberg is hard to describe before you try it. The exact thing that makes it special – the unpinnable character – also makes it a slight gamble for first-timers who like to know what they are getting.
• Branding will not land for everyone. The gothic vampire theme is fun but not to all tastes, and some buyers find it a bit gimmicky next to cleaner, more minimal modern brands.
• Format availability varies by flavour. Not every blend is offered in every format, so the exact one you want may not exist as a shortfill or a salt, forcing a compromise.
• Incoming duty will push prices up. Like every UK juice, Vampire Vape gets more expensive from October 2026 once the Vaping Products Duty lands – not the brand's fault, but a real cost factor regardless.
• Less hardware tie-in than rivals. Because Vampire Vape is a juice specialist rather than a device maker, there is no matched-kit ecosystem like some brands offer, so you bring your own hardware to the table.

Vampire Vape vs the alternatives

Vampire Vape does not vape in a vacuum. The UK juice market is loaded with serious brands, and it helps to see where Vampire Vape lines up against three of the loudest alternatives. Each one carries a different personality, and the right pick depends on what you value.

Vampire Vape vs Riot Squad

Riot Squad (or just "Riot") is a punchy, modern British brand that built its name on bold, fruit-forward salts with loud branding and a younger-feeling identity. Next to Riot, Vampire Vape feels more established and more grounded. Riot tends to push intensity and novelty – big, vivid fruit blasts built to grab attention – while Vampire Vape leans on balance, consistency and its iconic back catalogue. If you want the newest bright fruit hitting at maximum impact, Riot is worth a look. If you want a dependable all-day juice from a brand with proper heritage and a flagship nothing else matches, Vampire Vape edges it. Both are fairly priced and easy to find, so it usually comes down to taste rather than quality.

Vampire Vape vs Dinner Lady

Dinner Lady is the dessert specialist of the lot, famous above all for its lemon tart and other bakery-style flavours that genuinely taste like the real thing. This is the clearest case of two brands playing in different lanes. Where Dinner Lady is the go-to for rich, indulgent dessert and pudding profiles, Vampire Vape is the go-to for fruit, ice and that distinctive aniseed character. If desserts are your thing, Dinner Lady will satisfy you more. If you want refreshing all-day fruit and cooling, Vampire Vape is the stronger pick. Plenty of vapers happily run both on rotation – Dinner Lady for a sweet hit, Vampire Vape for everyday vaping. They complement each other more than they compete.

Vampire Vape vs ELFLIQ

ELFLIQ is the bottled juice line from Elf Bar, built to recreate the flavours of the massive disposables in a 10ml nic salt bottle. Its real strength is familiarity: if you vaped a particular Elf Bar, ELFLIQ lets you grab the same taste in a refillable kit. Against that, Vampire Vape offers more heritage and arguably more distinctive, original flavours rather than recreations of disposable hits. ELFLIQ wins on brand recognition with newer vapers coming off disposables; Vampire Vape wins on depth, character and the simple fact that Heisenberg has no real equivalent in the ELFLIQ range. For someone leaving Elf Bar disposables behind, ELFLIQ is the obvious comfort pick; for someone wanting a proper, original juice range with a flavour identity of its own, Vampire Vape is the more interesting buy. You can browse the full spread of brands across our e-liquids collection to compare directly.

Price and value

Vampire Vape sits comfortably in the affordable mainstream of the UK juice market – not the cheapest, not premium, but solid fair value for what lands in your hand. As a rough current guide, expect a 10ml nic salt at around £3 to £4, with multi-buy deals often dragging the per-bottle price down further when you grab a few at once. Shortfills, being bigger, typically run somewhere around £8 to £15 depending on bottle size, with the larger bottles offering better value per millilitre once you factor in the nic shots you add yourself.

On a cost-per-vape basis, the salts are decent value for pod-kit users, and the multi-buy bundles are where the real savings live – grabbing three or more bottles in one go almost always works out cheaper than buying singles. Shortfills are the most economical route for sub-ohm vapers who burn through a lot of juice, because you are buying a big volume of base and adding cheap nic shots rather than paying the higher per-millilitre rate of small nicotine-containing bottles. For a high-volume vaper, the shortfill route is meaningfully cheaper across a month.

The looming factor in any value chat is the Vaping Products Duty arriving on 1 October 2026, which adds £2.20 per 10ml. That changes the maths properly – a £3.50 nic salt effectively turns into a near-£6 product once the duty hits, and shortfills get hit proportionally to their volume. After that date, the relative value of buying bigger shortfills (and paying duty on a more efficient base) becomes even more pronounced for heavy users. Until then, Vampire Vape stays an easy, affordable everyday brand, and prices today are roughly where they have been for years. Whichever format you go with, the brand offers good value within its category – you are paying mainstream money for juice that punches above its weight on consistency and flavour.

Who should buy it

Vampire Vape is an easy recommendation for a clearly defined slice of adult vapers. If you love fruit and cooling flavours, this should be near the top of your list – it is the brand's core strength and where it consistently delivers. If you have never tried Heisenberg, you owe it to yourself to fire one up at least once; it is still one of the genuine icons of UK vaping and the whole reason the brand exists. If you value consistency and trust over chasing the latest release, the long heritage and reliable build make Vampire Vape a safe, sensible pick you can reorder with confidence.

It also suits vapers across every device type, since the range spans salts for pods, 50/50 for traditional setups and shortfills for sub-ohm rigs. And if you have an adventurous, grown-up palate that wants aniseed and unusual profiles most brands skip, Vampire Vape offers something genuinely different. The buyers who should look elsewhere are dedicated dessert lovers, who will be better served by a bakery specialist, and anyone who actively dislikes cooling or aniseed notes, since those run through a fair chunk of the range. For everyone else, Vampire Vape is a dependable, characterful brand that has earned its rep. You can find the full selection and matching hardware across our store.

Tips: strength, steeping shortfills and storage

Getting the best out of any juice is partly about the bottle and partly about how you handle it. A few easy habits will improve your experience with Vampire Vape, or any brand.

Choosing your strength. Start by matching nicotine to your device and your habit. If you are on a pod kit and you were a fairly heavy smoker, kick off with a 20mg salt and drop to 10mg if it feels too much. If you were a lighter user, 10mg salts are a softer landing. On a sub-ohm kit, stay low – a shortfill brought up to around 3mg to 6mg is plenty, because the bigger vapour volume serves up far more nicotine than the number on the bottle suggests. Getting the strength right is the single biggest factor in whether vaping feels satisfying, so do not be shy about adjusting until it sits properly.

Steeping shortfills. When you add a nic shot to a shortfill, the flavour can taste a bit muted or "flat" at first because the freshly mixed liquid needs time to blend properly. That is where steeping comes in. After dropping in your nic shot, give the bottle a good firm shake to combine everything, then leave it alone. Plenty of vapers find that resting a freshly mixed shortfill for a day or two – with the occasional extra shake – lets the flavour round out and reach its peak. A loose cap plus a gentle warm-and-shake can speed it up, but patience is the simplest move. The flavour after steeping is often noticeably fuller than straight after mixing, so do not judge a shortfill on the first puff.

Storage. E-liquid keeps best in a cool, dark place, away from direct sunlight and heat, both of which wreck flavour and gradually darken the liquid. A cupboard or drawer is ideal; a sunny windowsill or a hot car is the worst spot you can leave it. Keep bottles tightly capped to limit air exposure, which dulls flavour. Critically, always store juice and nic shots well out of reach of kids and pets – nicotine is toxic if swallowed, and child-resistant caps are a safeguard, not a guarantee. Check the best-before date and run through older stock first. Handled properly, your juice tastes its best right through its shelf life. Pairing your juice with the right device matters too, so it is worth browsing compatible vape kits if your current setup is not pulling the best out of your bottles.

Verdict

Vampire Vape has earned its longevity. In a market that chews up and spits out brands at a brutal rate, it has lasted more than a decade by doing the fundamentals properly: making consistent, characterful, fairly priced British juice and refusing to dilute its identity. Heisenberg alone would justify the brand's reputation – it is still one of the great UK flavours and the original that countless rivals have chased – but there is real depth behind it, from the sunny appeal of Pinkman to the grown-up bite of the aniseed range. The fruit and cooling blends are the strongest, the consistency is excellent, and the availability across salts, 50/50 and shortfills means there is a product here for almost every adult vaper.

It is not perfect. The dessert flavours are just fine, the aniseed blends divide opinion, and the brand leans heavily on one famous hit. None of that is a reason not to buy – they are simply the shape of a brand that knows what it is good at. For adult vapers who want a dependable, refreshing, well-made everyday juice with a flavour or two that nobody else can quite replicate, Vampire Vape is one of the safest picks in British vaping. Grab a Heisenberg, a Pinkman and one wildcard from the aniseed line, and you will quickly see why this brand has kept the lights on for so long.

Frequently asked questions

What does Heisenberg taste like?

Heisenberg is famously hard to pin down, which is half its charm. At its core it is a chilled, mixed-berry blend with a refreshing cold and a faint aniseed-style back-note running underneath the fruit. People call it berry, mint, candy or a whisper of liquorice – all of those land partly true. It is fruity without being a sweet-shop bomb, cold without going full menthol, and just weird enough that it does not taste like anything else on the shelf. Better experienced than described, and a brilliant all-day vape.

Is Vampire Vape a British brand?

Yes. Vampire Vape is a long-established British juice company that mixes in the UK and has been part of the UK vape scene since the early days of the modern market. UK manufacturing and full regulatory compliance are part of why it has built such a trusted name over more than a decade.

What nicotine strengths does Vampire Vape come in?

The nic salts typically land in 10mg and 20mg, with 20mg being the UK legal ceiling for nicotine e-liquid. The 50/50 freebase liquids also turn up at low and standard strengths in 10ml bottles. Shortfills are sold at 0mg, and you drop in a nic shot yourself to take them up to a low strength suited to sub-ohm vaping. Our nicotine strength guide walks through how to pick the right number for your device.

What is the difference between nic salts and shortfills?

Nic salts are smooth, higher-strength 10ml liquids built for small MTL pod kits, giving an easy throat hit even at 20mg. Shortfills are bigger 0mg bottles, usually higher in VG, built for powerful sub-ohm DTL kits; you add a nic shot to bring them up to a low working strength. Short version: salts are for small kits and a strong kick, shortfills are for big kits and big clouds.

Which Vampire Vape flavour should I try first?

For most people, Heisenberg is the obvious opener – it is the brand's icon and a brilliant all-day cool-berry vape. If you want something brighter and simpler, Pinkman is a sunny, tangy mixed-fruit blast that is very easy to like. Cool Red Lips is a solid third pick for a chilled red-fruit profile. Start with those three before exploring the more adventurous aniseed blends.

Why are nic salts only sold in 10ml bottles?

UK law limits nicotine-containing e-liquid to 10ml bottles and caps strength at 20mg per millilitre. That is why every compliant nic salt, Vampire Vape included, ships in those small bottles rather than bigger ones. Shortfills can be larger only because they hold 0mg nicotine until you add a shot, which exempts them from the small-bottle rule.

How much does Vampire Vape cost?

Rough guide today: a 10ml nic salt typically costs around £3 to £4, often less in multi-buy bundles, while shortfills run around £8 to £15 depending on size. Prices are approximate and vary by retailer. Worth remembering the new Vaping Products Duty of £2.20 per 10ml from 1 October 2026 will lift juice prices after that date.

Will Vampire Vape get more expensive in 2026?

Yes, like every juice sold in the UK. From 1 October 2026 a Vaping Products Duty of £2.20 per 10ml applies regardless of nicotine strength, so even 0mg shortfills get caught. Expect prices to climb from that date. Until then, current pricing is roughly where it has been for years.

Does Vampire Vape work in any device?

It works in the right device for each format. Nic salts and 50/50 liquids suit small, low-power MTL pod kits and starter devices. Shortfills suit larger sub-ohm DTL kits and tanks. Match the format to your hardware and any Vampire Vape flavour will perform; mismatching them – a salt in a sub-ohm rig, or a shortfill in a tiny pod – is the most common cause of disappointment. Our guide to the best refillable vape kits for beginners can help you choose.

Do I need to steep Vampire Vape shortfills?

It helps. When you add a nic shot to a shortfill, the flavour can taste a touch flat at first. Give the bottle a firm shake and then let it sit for a day or two – with the occasional extra shake – to let the flavour round out and reach its peak. Ready-to-vape nic salts and 50/50 liquids do not need steeping, since they ship pre-mixed at the correct strength.

Vape Daily is strictly 18+, age-verified at checkout. Nicotine is addictive. Bottles ship in plain, child-resistant packaging. This article is general information, not medical advice. Prices are approximate and vary by retailer. Want big-flavour juice and a kit that hits properly? Light up your next session over at the Vape Daily store – salts, shortfills, big-battery kits, all ready to fire.

Frequently asked questions

What does Vampire Vape Heisenberg taste like?

Heisenberg is a chilled mixed-berry blend with a faint aniseed back-note running underneath the fruit. It is fruity without being sweet-shop heavy, cold without going full menthol, and just weird enough that nothing else on the shelf tastes quite like it. Fans describe it as berry, mint, candy or a whisper of liquorice all at once, which is exactly why it became one of the most cloned flavours in UK vaping.

Is Vampire Vape a British brand?

Yes, Vampire Vape is a long-established British juice company that has mixed in the UK since the early days of the modern vape scene. Everything is made domestically and fully TPD-compliant, which is a big part of why it has held its trusted reputation for over a decade.

What nicotine strengths does Vampire Vape come in?

Vampire Vape nic salts land in 10mg and 20mg, with 20mg being the UK legal ceiling for nicotine e-liquid. The 50/50 freebase line also comes in low and standard strengths in 10ml bottles, while shortfills are sold at 0mg so you can add a nic shot yourself for sub-ohm vaping.

What is the difference between Vampire Vape nic salts and shortfills?

Nic salts are smooth, higher-strength 10ml liquids built for small MTL pod kits, giving an easy throat hit even at 20mg. Shortfills are bigger 0mg bottles, usually higher in VG, built for powerful sub-ohm DTL kits, and you add a nic shot to bring them up to a low working strength. Salts for small kits and a strong kick, shortfills for big kits and big clouds.

Which Vampire Vape flavour should I try first?

Start with Heisenberg, the brand's icon and a brilliant all-day cool-berry vape. If you want something brighter and simpler, Pinkman is a sunny, tangy mixed-fruit blast that is very easy to like, and Cool Red Lips is a solid third pick for a chilled red-fruit profile. Those three cover the Vampire Vape house style before you explore the adventurous aniseed blends.

Why are Vampire Vape nic salts only sold in 10ml bottles?

UK law caps nicotine-containing e-liquid at 10ml bottles and 20mg per millilitre, so every compliant nic salt ships in those small bottles. Shortfills can be larger because they hold 0mg nicotine until you add a shot, which exempts them from the small-bottle rule.

Will Vampire Vape get more expensive in 2026?

Yes. From 1 October 2026 a new Vaping Products Duty of £2.20 per 10ml applies to every juice sold in the UK regardless of nicotine strength, so even 0mg shortfills get caught. A £3.50 nic salt effectively turns into a near-£6 product once the duty hits, with shortfills taxed proportionally to their volume.

Do I need to steep Vampire Vape shortfills before vaping?

It helps. After adding a nic shot, give the bottle a firm shake and let it sit for a day or two with the occasional extra shake to let the flavour round out and reach its peak. Ready-to-vape nic salts and 50/50 liquids do not need steeping since they ship pre-mixed at the correct strength.