A tasting menu! Start with Like This (Etat Libre d'Orange), an amazing medley reminiscent of the bucolic Scottish Highlands with fruity whisky, honey-sweet tangerine, and savoury wafts of roasted ginger-spiced pumpkin. It is the scent of home and of comfort, of the Scottish hillside in the lazy springtime, a sweetly spiced fragrance ruptured with unique orange notes. Follow this with La Fin du Monde (Etat Libre d'Orange), where buttered popcorn is balanced with a quartet of creamy earthy notes that remind us of pencil shavings (orris absolute, sesame seed, carrot seed, ambrette seed). For many, La Fin du Monde is a magical sweetness, a nostalgic scent that is both beautiful and fascinating, where delicious tones are set against a fantasy of cackling gunpowder, softened with the balsamic warmth of styrax.
For an emphasis on roasted warmth, there is nothing better than a coffee fragrance. Intense Cafe (Montale), features the stirring note of a freshly roasted brew, evocative of the first sip on a cold morning. This is a legendary scent, a gourmand of well-deserved status, sweetened with hints of green rose and vanilla to lend perfumed complexity. 1969 by Histoires de Parfum takes the coffee note as a single component of a larger composition, where tempting summer fruits mingle with dark chocolate and a counterpoint of clove. At its heart, this is a floral fragrance supported by patchouli, a classic pairing that welcomes great variation.
Make fruit serious with Frapin's 1270, which is the fragrant equivalent of dipping your nose into a snifter of the most refined oak-tinted Cognac. 1270 blushes with nuances of dried tropical fruit, cacao, orange peel, and honey. Bring your nose back to the glass, and find additional notes of charred woods, spices, tobacco, and even hazelnut. Finally, warm yourself with a seriously tempting chilli-spiked Spanish dark drinking chocolate in Boccanera (Orto Parisi). A simple idea executed in a manner only possible in Alessandro Guiltieri’s hands – Boccanera is hauntingly dark; a bold composition supported by powerful sandalwood notes that leaves a long lasting impression. Boccanera is without relief, that is, without contrasting freshness – and is a steady wall of smell, blending wood notes with delicious ones.
