Pinoy

When I recently bought back a stash of Oud Royale II (Philippines, 2007) from a collector, I did what the Chinese oud tycoons did back in 2011 when they flew to the Gulf to buy back their own wood.

What does this tell you?

The only way to get this class of oud, is to get it back.

The reason you’re even reading about this is because we waited more than eleven years after releasing Oud Royale II to release this Filipino oud; one that smells completely different.

It almost feels like a lie. The world of oud seems so vast, with so many new vendors mushrooming, and the supply seemingly never-ending that it can’t be true. But all you have to do is ask. Ask yourself. Ask Google. Ask anybody.

Nobody sells this caliber sinking-grade Filipino oud. It’s not that there are olde Filipino oils in circulation that you just don’t have access to. It’s that nobody owns any such Filipino oud to sell.

At the time we made Oud Royale II and Pinoy, who else was organizing fishing boats to survey the Filipino shores in search of agarwood? Certainly, nobody took the treasures they found up to Taiwan to be distilled into the single most sought-out signature in the oud world.

With Oriscent ouds, you get impossibly rare and expensive wood distilled into a singular aesthetic. And Pinoy is in many ways the El Capitan of this world. A scent that’s almost pure heart note right from the top, with a narcotic consistency that even Oud Royale II doesn’t give you.

No one can go back a decade to capture such a montage of mimosa, lilac and pepper lacquered in oud smoke, just like no one can now spend ten years to age it for these notes to marry and become a single addicting chord. In fact, hardly anybody knew about Filipino oud until recently.

This is oud where those around you don’t just feel comfortable in your fragrant presence — they want in. What others think might not matter; what this shows is the scent’s tenacity. The satisfaction of smelling the powdery pollen wave bounce off the flush of blue kyara. A combo that, once smelled, you cannot un-smell. You will crave this Pinoy like no other oud.

Pinoy is the grandaddy of Filipino oud. A pristine, herbaceous blue wrapped in the spice of myrrh, with a powdery soft-burning kyara glaze that’s the signature of each Oriscent legend. Fresh heart notes reminiscent of Suriranka and Maluku island ouds never depart from the resinous core native to the scent of mighty old gaharu.

Oud Royale II is darker, smokier, with a heavier tenor—it’s more Oud Royale. Pinoy follows the zen tradition of Nha Trang, Kyara, and Royal Guallam where the resinous profile of the heated wood takes center stage. Don’t expect a youthful barrage of top notes out of sync with the body of the scent. Notes don’t scatter about, instead the scent progression holds super tight, slowly transmuting from top through drydown, with a narcotic, bitter-sweet medicinal sweetness that lines each chord.

The maturity and depth of Pinoy bubble like a sticky slab of bangle-grade agarwood. Zero fractionation, Oriscent-style distillation, and a batch of old lapnisan that’s rarer than stardust faturan make Pinoy one of the most mesmerizing scents known to humankind.

Related: Abuyog Sinking oud chips.