We begin with the citrus-charged freshness of Falling Into The Sea, which at first stupefies with its gorgeous medley of citrus fruits – lemon, bergamot, and grapefruit – complemented with lychee, adding an addictive sweetness and happy atmosphere to the fragrance. This is a vision of the kindest sea, pristine blue water and warm white sand. Its impression is of bursting freshness with the gentlest impression of salt-coated florals. Saint Julep deepens this freshness and goes about it by crafting a cocktail from crushed mint leaves, sugar, and bourbon whisky – a Mississippi must. This is a mature freshness alloyed to amber – it is superbly rounded, blended, textured and tenacious. In similar fashion, Every Storm a Serenade is a woody-aquatic fragrance that is tenaciously fresh, rendering beloved notes of vetiver, calone, ambergris, and piney wood materials in a sophisticated and elegant way.
Cape Heartache (the editor’s favourite) is a deeply woody fragrance – an expansive rendering of the Pacific Northwest in scent through fir, pine, hemlock, and vanilla. It is tinged a deep green but beautifully smooth, worked with an incredible wild strawberry note: as green as it is red, acerbic as it is sweet. It gives this vast fragrance a focal point. Memoirs of a Trespasser is a brand favourite, a vanilla-enriched wood fragrance where the oak barrel is its focus. Impressions of char, smoke, brown spirit, tobacco, are set against an addictive background of clay and resin. And in a certain sense, A Whiff of Waffle Cone can be understood as the gourmand extension where the vanilla note takes centre stage. Its sweetness is tempered by its seriousness – a work of perfumery that layers floral-vanillic sweetness with impressions of cinnamon, caramel, cream, and sandalwood. As it dries down, it reveals a prominent maple note, which pulses a smoky, dark, and resinous tone.