Oud Sultani: Nha Trang

Oud Sultani’s signature is a wild, auxiliary-licious concoction that ditches any monkoh serenity for a deep purple floral heart characteristic of “one of those rare, old Malaysians… the ones that smell like flowers,” now cut through with a resinous blue vein, punctuated with the heavy-toned duo of violet leaf and rare Nepalese spikenard infused into crimson jasmine petals sweetened by castoreum.

At the center of all that blue-purple you’ve got the most insane entourage of ouds that has ever gone into an EO parfum.

The entire basis of Oud Sultani has always been a perfume rendition of the gorgeous purple floral ouds of yesteryear. This time, instead of honing in on a specific purple facet, we’re pulling out the full spectrum that creates the peerless ‘Sultani’ profile; oud directly from the very jungles that produce this signature purple-flower tenor. In this case, the trinity that defines the legendary West Malaysian jungles and gave rise to Sultani’s own Terengganu and Ahmad’s Kelantan, and the blue-floral brainzap courtesy of Pahang.

Between Terengganu and Kelantan’s stunning blue-purple resin, honey, rain-soaked earth – Pahang imbues its narcotic lily-violet sparkle that shifts with temperature and humidity, dense as sinking incense, centuries deep. Oud of this caliber, this resinous, this rare, comes around once in a lifetime.

Spray it, and the first top notes taste like biting into a handful of juicy grapes and dark berries, skins splitting cold, juice running underneath – while the trio’s cool mint and rain-wet forest floor cut straight through the purple florals. Tonkin musk and castoreum arrive right behind it, raw and leathery, pulling that blue note into something closer to a chipped sapphire than an empty sky. Then the Sultani DNA takes over: jasmine and rose swelling in, violet leaf and tenacious spikenard cutting a green, bitter edge through them, vintage orris coating the middle in violet-dusted suede. 

Give it an hour and Pahang starts working its way into the corners – a narcotic lily note that wasn’t there at the start, a resinous weight that thickens the air around you like incense smoke that hasn’t finished clearing a room. In the cold, it deepens into something like a square of dark chocolate studded with candied violets, the mineral edge only showing up after the sweetness does. In heat, the florals swell until you can almost feel them at the back of your throat, and the blue note goes syrupy, narcotic, like blue lotus left steeping too long.

Not only did I want to consolidate the best facets of the previous editions, but also add an even louder roar to its “blue-purple blast of sticky resinous goodness.” That’s why this edition also contains a generous dose of Tigerwood 1991, because this distillation dates back to the ‘Oud Sultani’ era that inspired this perfume, is from those very same Malaysian jungles, and gives this edition that ‘91 flare everyone’s been praising.

By the drydown, Tigerwood 1991 and the vintage ouds take the wheel — dense, plum-dark, faintly smoky, with West Melayya trinity still numbing the back of the scent like a sliver held under the tongue. 

Now, after the trinity was locked in and this already felt like the most complete Oud Sultani ever made, I still went and added another oud, the one I’ve said I’d keep if I had to give up every other oud I’ve ever made. While it’s praised for its “red” aroma, I personally find Nha Trang LTD incredibly blue – which is why it’s central to Mystical Lotus. Here, it injects that kyara signature; that mouth-numbing narcotic, camphoric sharpness, and a medicinal bitterness that cuts straight through all that blue-purple honey.

As I lament here, the fact that Pahang has flown under the radar is criminal. That lily-violet-flowered, centennial resin vapor hits like a crystalline hallucination. Smell Oud Ahmad buzzing with the floral voltage of Oud Sultani, funneled through the earthy soul of Pahang’s blue spice, with Nha Trang buzzing through them all.

Then again, you could say that each and every one of the ouds in the perfume has flown under the radar. The reason is simple: Where to find them?

This edition includes:

1. Wild, sinking-grade Nha Trang LTD (aged ~17 years)
2. Wild, sinking-grade Terengganu (aged ~40+ years)
3. Wild, sinking-grade Kelantan (aged ~40+ years)
4. Wild, sinking-grade Pahang (aged ~40+ years)
5. Tigerwood 1991
6. Wild, incense-grade Myitkyina (aged ~40+ years)
7. Wild, incense-grade Mantarang (aged ~15 years)

For context: at 25% concentration, a standard “extrait de parfum” bottle contains ~12.5g of aromatic compound in total. At 30%, it’s ~13.8g. In other words, oud alone makes up more than half the aromatic load a normal extrait formulation contains.

But this is not a normal extrait bottle – the concentration is even higher. And at a formidable 8 grams of oud per bottle, this is also the highest concentration Oud Sultani to date.

Limited.

Ships by 19 August.

Reviews of previous editions…