Sundanau

Compared to the quantities produced of most essential oils, every EO oud is a micro-batch.

So, when we say ‘micro-batch’ we mean micro within the oud world. In this sense, the quantities we’re talking about dwindle into non-existence when compared to even rare, premium floral extracts.

Some distillations yielded only ten bottles, some five. We’ve had ones that yielded only a single bottle.

And these are only the ones you hear about. What you don’t hear about are the ones that yielded zero bottles. Distillations that went wrong, or some that… never happened.

These didn’t just not happen, but didn’t happen after much cost and effort.

Here’s a glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes to produce – or not produce – your ouds:

We bought a fat agarwood log directly from hunters in Sarawak. We then flew the whole log to Singapore for safekeeping before we headed to Cambodia to take care of a big deal.

Once the deal in Cambodia was just about finalized, Ensar and I split up – he drove up North for a five-hour trip to the Thai border to conclude the deal, while I flew back to Singapore to fetch the Sarawak log and fly it to Bangkok and take a bus from there.

We were going to meet up at the Cambodia/Thailand border, deal done, log brought, all ready to fire up the pots.

The log made it from Sarawak to Singapore, then Bangkok, then a six-hour bus trip, after which I held onto the log stretched out on my legs as I sat behind the driver on a 90CC moped through busy traffic, trying not to hit cars and bikes around me, then in a tuk-tuk to meet up with Ensar, who met me carrying a 17kg Cambodi log, and another five, only-slightly smaller ones, all going to the distillery, another three-hour drive away.

We wanted to distill a special Sarawak / Koh Kong brew, which is why we went through the expense and time of bringing the log all this way. And all the Koh Kong red water madness that happened next…

  We axed up the log, chiseled it, then did the math.

It wouldn’t work.

All we got from it was the memory of my name being called out over the speaker at the airport in Phnom Penh as I ran to catch the flight to fetch the log, “Mr. Thomas Kruger, please report to the boarding gate immediately. This is the final call…” as Ensar got into a car about to head off five hours North with a guy that would eventually screw us over to the tune of ~$22,000.

The log and the trips and costs and the flights and everything turned into an oud that never was. 

We’ve shared many similar oudscapades over the years to show that the oud seas aren’t for smooth sailing. The above is just one example of what goes into making your ouds – or, in this case, not making them! 

But you do get gusts of wind that push your sails forward. That’s how we ended up with Sundanau…

This time, things went right. The effort and the time paid off. Sundanau is a micro-batch that’s pure delight. A spice rack tossed into a river of thick blue resin, vanilla and cinnamon bubbles pop as sweet clouds of incense move above.

Sundanau is a rare breed of Sumbawa and Malinau batches coming together. If distilled separately, Sumbawan oud would be almost black, while Malinau will come out in a golden yellow, and the colors hint at their aromas.

A straight Sumbawa will be uber smokey, Maroke-like but with a sharp mintiness, while Malinau is powdery, dry, and beautifully sweet.

If you followed the making of Musc Gardénia, you’d know that we chose Borneo oils exclusively to pair the perfume with. Part of the reason was that Borneo oud’s golden tone was a fantastic complement to the minty, white floral profile of the perfume.

Brewed together, Malinau’s vanilla raspberry cinnamon delicious resin clashes with the minty noir of Sumbawan agar to create sparks of olfactory wonder. 

Very limited supply.