In the early 2000s, I embarked on a well-deserved vacation trip to distant Italy with a friend. We had truly earned this trip after all the troubles in vocational training, with girls, and what else occupies an 18- or 19-year-old.
We arrived in the evening, weakened by the long journey. I believe it was in Bibione. It was obvious that we first needed to refuel. We did this with a stone oven pizza and beer. We would take care of a hotel room later.
Slowly, dusk fell. Off to the beach. With a few cans of beer as provisions, we made ourselves comfortable on the loungers of a hotel beach. A few beers later, it was already dark, and searching for a hotel in our condition seemed hopeless. In the fully loaded Fiat Punto we had traveled in, we didn’t even try. Why would we? The loungers were nice, the temperature mild. That was our sleeping place!
We chatted, drank beer, were happy, and had made peace with the world. At some point, two guys came by with a pretty girl in tow, walking towards the beach. All about our age. In the light of some dim beach lanterns, they spotted us. They approached us and spoke to us unfriendly, in German. Perhaps because our loungers were close together, one asked "if we were gay"? The two guys seemed to be looking for trouble. Today I know they probably wanted to show off in front of their girl. They definitely wanted to fight. Nothing was further from our minds. Peace!!! We had often held hands in the quiet area we lived in to pretend we were a couple. This was just to shock, which we had already managed a few times. So we did that now too. Clever as I was, I replied "speak English?" They fell for it. One said something like "Gaylords," then they walked on towards the beach, mocking us for being "fags."
The three of them were of no concern to us anymore. They spent some time at the shore, strolling in the gentle waves and sitting in the sand. After a while, they started their way back. They walked a few meters past our loungers, deliberately passing an unmistakable sandcastle whose surroundings were marked by a conspicuously large hole. They all jumped one after the other into the approximately 80 cm deep hole, which had probably been dug by playing children during the day. My friend and I watched everything very closely. We had to laugh like rarely before, which did not go unnoticed. The three came back to us again. When asked, "what's going on," my buddy said: "We peed in the hole." And indeed, that was the case. Where else, after all, we had few alternatives. Once our three friends were convinced of this, they cursed a bit more, but then awkwardly cleared the field.
One might find this account unappetizing, but I have never experienced bad karma falling back on someone so promptly. That was the echo!!!
A few days before the trip, I had purchased my first "premium fragrance" for 54 euros (after all, one-seventh of my monthly salary), namely Echo. Before that, I had grabbed countless samples of it, but I wanted to have it unlimited for the upcoming summer. Echo was my entry into the world of perfume. It was present at so many moments that I will never forget. To this day, I have easily used a liter of it.
A female colleague always says when I wear it that it smells like cucumber water. Fine by me. But it is the cucumber that swims in a finely made gin and tonic. One that is filled with ice cubes. No ingredient seems cheap. It is not sweet, low-quality cucumber water. But one that you have to sip again and again, one that has never made me feel bad like Jacky-Cola.
In this icy gin swims wood, freshly harvested wood. Leather. Something indefinably fruity, yet miles away from the sticky sweet mainstream of today’s perfumes. Pepper, colorful, coarsely ground pepper is part of it. Maybe a hint of ginger, a touch. Definitely spice. All of this seems somewhat synthetic but not dishonest and certainly not unpleasant.
Echo knows how to surprise. Sometimes it is still present the next morning after a long night at the pub (smoking pub), sometimes the magic has faded after what feels like 3 hours. The sillage is not a knockout, rather OK. Beautiful, however, is the skin-close drydown characterized by woody, leathery notes. You often perceive the scent a bit differently than expected. Never, however, is it disturbing or uneven; the individual components sometimes stand out a bit more. I always found the last tenth of the bottle the best. Compliments were rare compared to other fragrances (like Black Roses XS), which I wore more often at the time. This may be due to the target audience.
Now I come to this. This is also the reason why I am writing this comment. A few days ago, a sporty, gray-haired gentleman drove past me in stop-and-go traffic. Sunglasses, black polo shirt. He was driving a black Mercedes AMG-GTS Roadster. Casually, he smoked his cigar and tapped the ash into the onboard ashtray. The throttle of the exhaust system was set so that hardly any noise disturbance came from the vehicle. The gentleman was not a show-off like you often see in such cars. More of a gentleman who has made something of himself, attractive for his age.
I happened to walk past his vehicle later, which was parked with the top down, and saw the silver Davidoff cigar tubes in the center console. They reminded me of Echo.
I wondered how this gentleman smelled. A lot could be in question. But which Davidoff scent could he be wearing? Cool Waters? - somehow too trivial. Zino? - could fit, but somehow bland, too conservative. Hmm, maybe he is the happy owner of some (fabulous) Relax leftovers. But he definitely does not wear Hot Water, The Game, Horizon, Run Wild, or whatever else Davidoff has concocted in recent years.
No, it must be Echo. Would that suit such a gentleman? Yes!!! That’s what I like about him. To me, he seems timeless. Echo is timeless.
Long discontinued, for me the best Davidoff scent I have ever smelled. It is still available for little money. Maybe no one will shed a tear for it. I will. My first love. For me a benchmark, memories, habits. Finest cucumber water that I will one day miss because it is far superior to the fresh scents of today.
Top Notes 
Aldehydes
Aquatic notes
Suede
Heart Notes 
Nutmeg
Black pepper
Chili
Base Notes 
Cedar
Musk
Sandalwood
WiseOwl
Elysium
Chnokfir
BlackbirdHH
Mafis
Basti87
Bellemorte
Gluckspilz
PaulKnows
Pimm
