'Ice' Is Not a Flavor: What the Cold Words on the Can Actually Mean

Three people wrote in this month asking whether Grape Ice is minty. Mostly no, though there's a hint of mint. The cold words on pouch cans (Cool, Icy, Ice, Frost, Freezing) do mean specific things, but nobody publishes the system, because the brands made it up one launch at a time. Everything in this guide comes from cans we stock. We're putting it up a few days before mint month starts, on purpose.

What the cold words describe

Each can has three things that vary separately. Flavor is what it tastes like. Temperature is how cold it feels. Menthol and cooling agents act on nerves, not taste buds, which is why a pouch can be cold with no mint flavor at all. Strength is the mg (our strength guide explains it), and it has nothing to do with the other two: ZYN Menthol Ice starts at 11 mg and is colder than cans with a lot more nicotine. Mint as a flavor already has its own guide, so this one is just about the cold.

Cool: the lightest cold

Cool is the gentlest word on the list, and that's why ZYN uses it as a prefix. In Cool Mint, Cool Blueberry and Cool Watermelon, the cold stays in the background. It's light and never icy. VELO's softer cold cans (Wintery Watermelon and Purple Grape) belong here too, even with the wintery name. You mostly notice this kind of cold when it's gone.

Ice after a fruit: a layer of menthol

When "Ice" comes after a fruit, the fruit flavor has a cold layer added on top. VELO Tropical Ice is the mild version: pineapple and mango up front and a soft mint finish, at 10 mg. Pablo's Exclusive fruit Ices (Mango, Banana, Grape and Blueberry Peach, all 30 mg) are very cold. Pablo Gold Grape Ice does the same thing at 17, which is why it won our grape pouch test. None of these taste like mint, but all of them are cold.

Icy: ZYN's hard freeze

When ZYN switches from Cool to Icy, expect a lot more cold. Icy Mint is a deep menthol freeze with the sweetness turned down. Icy Blackcurrant is tart dark fruit with a hard freeze and no mint flavor at all, so it's the one to try if you still think cold and mint are the same thing. Blackcurrant Frost at 13.5 is a little sharper again, which fits the name.

Frost, Freezing, Polar, Storm: VELO's weather names

VELO names its mints like weather reports, which we covered in June in our post on VELO's mint names. Crispy Peppermint has a steady bite, Peppermint Storm is more intense, and Freezing Peppermint is colder than anything else VELO makes. We stock it at 10, 14 and 17, and our VELO strength guide goes through each step. Polar Mint is the deep-cool everyday can. The weather words describe the kind of cold, not the strength. Freezing at 10 mg is still 10 mg.

Ice on its own: straight menthol

With no fruit in front of it, "Ice" means menthol is the flavor. From mildest to most extreme, there's ZYN Menthol Ice at 11, 13.5 or 16.5, which is almost cough-drop cold without the medicinal taste. After that come Pablo Gold Frosted Ice at 17, Pablo Ice Cold at 24 (the blue can in the photo) and Pablo X Ice Cold, also at 24 but with a cold that lasts longer. At the top is Pablo Exclusive Frosted Ice at 30, the coldest pouch we sell, and it's on our ranking of the strongest pouches too.

Using this when you buy

Choose in this order: flavor, then how cold you want it, then mg. For cold without mint flavor, get Icy Blackcurrant or any fruit Ice. If you want mint flavor without much cold, try White Fox Original, which is cool, slightly salty and piney (our White Fox post explains the pine) with no menthol freeze, or Iceberg Sweet Mint, which is mint with a little extra sweetness. Our hot-weather post covers cold flavors for summer. Everything with a cold to it is on our mint pouches page, at $9.99 a can.

The cold words at a glance

• Cool means a light cold, Ice after a fruit means a menthol layer on top, Icy and Frost mean a hard freeze, and Ice on its own means menthol is the flavor.
• Cold isn't the same as mint. Icy Blackcurrant is very cold and has no mint flavor.
• Cold has nothing to do with strength. Menthol Ice at 11 mg is colder than cans with a lot more nicotine.
• The coldest can we sell is Pablo Exclusive Frosted Ice, at 30 mg.

August is mint month here, with every peppermint, spearmint and menthol pouch we carry in one face-off, starting next week. If you want to make the case for a can before then, send us a message.

WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.