Meghalaya 1977

Like the watershed moment it was in music history, the transition the oud world witnessed in the 1970s would have a ripple effect on everything we’d smell, and never smell again, from that point onward.

The late 70s was a turning point for Indian oud as hunters followed the gold rush into Cambodia. India was on the way out. Cambodia, about to make it big. Why the shift?

The pools ran dry… At the turn of the 80s, India bade farewell to an era. Cultivation became the focus for many (including the government) and hunters sallied over to Kampong Speu and Pursat where jungles were still rich with generational trees.

Do you know what caused Hindi oud’s skid into the cheesy lactic bacteria soakfest we recognize it as today? The zest not of truly wild agar but progressively inferior feedstock that would brand itself as the hallmark ‘Assam’ profile. The answer lies in this one word you’ve heard so many times: Resin.

Early generation Cambo-Malay ouds followed the traditional Indian cooking style yet were not shackled by the chains of low-grade wood. Soaked or unsoaked, high temp or low, the thread of high-grade resin is palpable. Rather than funk, you smell flowers, mint, fruit jam, and a heckload of sesquiterpene-laden sheer oudy bliss.

Fermentation may be an age-old practice, but the reason it continued to be done is crucial to understand why Meghalaya 1977 is such a nose-warp, a scent so out of place yet so timeless, a resin-drenched blast of purple-red fruit jam for an oil that should be… yellow?

I’m a few hours into wearing it, and the incense is sublime. Hours of this pristine bitter syrup oozing at low temp with no trace of the signature rooibos or animal hide notes you’d expect. There’s a vibrant burgundy glaze atop, a dense gubal-like repleteness that vaguely reminds me of Oud Nuh (Garo Hills, 2008). And not a whiff of the sour milk twang that defines modern ouds from the region.

But that’s all it is, a distant echo of Nuh’s Bornean sweetness coupled with the fruitiness of a caramelized Cambodi, drenched in the timeless garb of Meghalaya.

While you expect spicy zesty honeybush top notes, the resinous opening tone is so pristine it has a cooling effect that shoots right up your sinuses.

Compared to modern oils from neighboring areas, Meghalaya 1977 is a gargantuan slab of sinking-grade resin half a century old which instantly renders the comparison void.

The smell will tease you to no end – the faint familiarity to an oud that was already a black swan, with scent density akin to Kambodi 1976 – until you reach the point I’m at now, a few hours in drinking the sublime ruby-red nectar, yet agallochan incense on autodrive. What is this?

The references in your olfactory harddrive are scant. The comparison to Nuh is, at best, a weak metaphor.

That’s why you won’t recognize Meghalaya 1977. It’s not from our times. It’s why you can swipe it next to any Indian oud, even your most vintage reserve, and finally see why nothing anybody distills today can smell like this, ever. Not just the quality, but the actual smell of the resin from agallochas that grew in a different ecosystem is like smelling a different species altogether.

There’s a point in oud appreciation where you discover that, despite the massive differences between various regions’ profiles, there’s a certain DNA that runs through all superlative oud oils. Smell Oud Ahmad and Kambodi 1976, or Sultani 1975 and Purple Kinam, and there’s a line of distinction which every old-timer can point to. “This is really good oud” – your nose testifies in the same way it can tell fresh produce or the smell of rain before it falls.

If you scored a gram of Vintage Hindi oud chips we gifted recently then you know exactly what I’m talking about. That’s the wood Sultan Qaboos went after. Those are the harvests oils like these were extracted from.

Smelling Meghalaya 1977 will be an eye-opening experience for even veteran oudheads. And because of what it has to teach any oud lover new or old, we want to make it as accessible as possible.

That’s why this soulful resin-oozing Sultani costs the same as the last bottles of Oud Nuh retailed for almost ten years ago – when sourcing an oil like this was unthinkable.

Featured Testimonials…