Maluku 1997 – Running Low

We wanted you to get a glimpse of our Private Ghalia: Maluku, so here is a bag of the grandaddy wood harvested from the same (now extinct) aquilaria cumingiana trees.

You may remember a rare batch of Maluku ’96 we sold years ago. Those chips were red-resin Maluku that looked more like sandalwood than they did agarwood (akin to this incredible Almahera harvest).

This harvest gives you proper black-resin Maluku agarwood. Harvested twenty-seven years ago, this is one of the rarest harvests circulating in veteran oud circles. Even back then, Maluku oud was a rarity, which is why this batch is still around, almost three decades later. 

Some believe that Maluku is short for ‘The Island of Kings-(from Arabic). Combine the ‘Island of Kings’ idea with fancy boxes, bottles and stories of royalty, and you’ve got a recipe for success. I’m surprised more companies haven’t cashed in on it, especially in the Gulf. Those who have seized the marketing opportunity obviously offer ouds that are only ‘Maluku’ by name…

Stories about kings and princes aside, real oud connoisseurs are painfully aware of how sought-after quality Maluku agarwood of any sort is. Similar harvests from the Philippines currently costs this much wholesale (I pay $40+ per gram for mine), while very few come even close to matching this vintage Maluku batch in fragrance.

From all the agarwood we’ve smelled in the past twenty years, there has been a tale of two irises that I’ve never come across elsewhere. The first batch was from Ceram (the scent that lead to the creation of Iris Ghalia).

Ceram – and this:

The purple chord is so unusual in agarwood. So exquisite I’m reluctant to even heat these chips!

A bit romantic, maybe. But the iris is real. The quiet calm inhaled at low temp soothes you. The fact that you have the chance to own vintage Maluku agarwood is real – that it’s olde generation aquilarias that peaked when most of us were still in high school – that is something else!

An insatiable iris aroma lies at the heart of this harvest. The mood the scent evokes is at once delectable and beautiful. A single carving packs enough resin to keep your burner happy for many a day. (As a memento, I’d keep at least one of the pieces, perhaps in a small glass display, and for posterity’s sake.) There’s a soul-stirring depth to the low-profile chords of mixed spice imbued with the floral heart you only smell in intensely resinous agarwood – and these notes are even more elegant in vintage batches like this.

Mature resin is packed with a theater of scents on display once you start to heat a piece. The scent that gently wafts in smoke is more layered, has more going on, than in younger resin. I don’t believe it’s the density itself that does this. It’s not about hard vs. soft resin. It’s years of biological magic that takes place and ends up as fragrant vapor dancing through the air. Or as oil, bottled up. Research is sorely lacking about why and how this slow process makes for a richer aroma; why old, densely resinated agarwood smells SO good. And frankly, who cares? All you need to know is that it does.

Just as you sometimes smell subtle, sometimes stark, differences between grades of resin, so regional varieties each come with unique flavors. And that’s what makes Maluku 1997 extra special.

Not only do you enjoy premium agarwood straight up, but you score a backstage pass to oud of the nineties and the chance to specifically zoom further into the majestic agarworld of Maluku.