Kashmiri Musk

Two hundred years ago, your pharmacist might have given you musk.

Deaf? Musk in the ear.

Feeling faint? Musk.

Hysterics? Hiccups? Musk.

The old pharmacopeias credited the stuff with all sorts of powers, most of which it probably never had.

But smell old Kashmiri musk neat and you get why they thought it could wake the dead. 

While Mongolian musk is chocolatey and warm and Tibetan is creamy and truffled, Kashmiri musk is the funky feral one of the family.

Crack open an old pod and the grains give off a smell like a sweaty, sun-baked horse saddle marinated in crushed peppercorns, with a texture that ends up as thick black paste. It’s so strong, it’ll make some people cough. Jerk away and hold their noses, even. “Skanky!” they’ll say.

Yet your nose gets curious. Something ancestral in the back of your brain wants to know what on earth that was.

So you smell again.

Round two is a different animal. Your nose is more attuned now after the initial shock. The pepper softens into something like crushed violet petals, the hide relaxes into a worn kid-leather glove, and sticky syrupy honey seeps up through the grains like it’s leaking from a cracked honeycomb.

I’ll leave the hiccups to the pharmacist. What kept tempting me was a question no pharmacopeia could answer: how much of that glorious funk could you cram into a perfume before it bit back?

FEEDING THE BEAST

Apothecaries dosed musk by the grain for a reason – anything timid next to it gets eaten alive. So I wheeled out the heavy artillery: Vietnamese and Hainanese oud.

The Vietnamese oud is the brawler. With its own kind of yeasty, fermented tang, it has this indolic sinensis bite that grabs the Kashmiri grains by the collar. Leather meets dark fruit, and the pair cook down together like figs left to stew in a leather pouch on a camel’s back.

The Hainan oud is the cold towel. Its camphor tingles like menthol on the back of your throat, with orange peel twisted over the top, and it lifts the musk’s bite off your skin so you can take a full, deep breath of it. Sichuan pepper and ginger go on top, fizzing and numbing, and the musk’s own pepper picks up the tingle.

TROUBLE IN THE BOTTLE

And here’s the trick. Lock all those troublemakers in one bottle and they behave – kind of. Funny how that works… the untamed musk, the ripe, leathery Guallam, Hainan’s zesty orange-peel incense, and the luscious, raunchy flowers keep each other in check, and what’s left is a beast that’s learned some manners. Wear it to dinner. Wear it to the office. Nobody will guess what’s lurking underneath.

The top notes are still a touch raunchy. Blackcurrant buds come at you sharp and catty, that tomcat-in-the-currant-bush tang, with a slice of yuzu and bergamot spitting on top. And a unique fusion of betel leaf and krachai adds a hot and gingery pitch, like curry paste pounded on a stone.

Then the flowers come out to play, and they’re still learning their manners. Narcissus smells of warm hay and bare shoulders, while tuberose melts like butter into a sensual pool of carnal creaminess. The whole heart smells flushed and heady, like a bedroom at midnight with the lights off. 

Somewhere in the middle of all that, a dark cherry glaze slides in, sticky and glossy like the skin of a cherry roasted until it splits. The Kashmiri musk wraps itself around it, and suddenly the beast is purring.

The old apothecaries swore it could revive you… they may have been onto something.

COMPOSITION: Kashmiri Musk · Vietnamese Oud · Hainan Oud · Blackcurrant Bud · Yuzu · Sichuan Peppercorn · Betel Leaf · Krachai · Red Champaca · Jasmine Sambac · Tuberose · Narcissus · Blue Lotus · Beeswax · Tobacco · Oakmoss · Castoreum · Indian Sandalwood.

Ships by 21.