Hyde Hiram Green 2018
1
Hippies excavating at La Brea Tar Pits
Hyde is truth in advertising, a beast of a dark fragrance with a softer side hidden under a thick layer of citrusy tar. The opening is intimidating, even when my expectations have been managed by the label. The birch tar hits you full on, heavy with smoldering smoke, a California meadow in flames.
After a while, it surprisingly starts to mellow out, and I feel like I've stepped into one of those old second-hand vintage clothing stores that abounded near my college. Those shops managed by elderly Woodstock hippies who also sold incense, hemp bags, and patchouli soaps, and if you got to know the owner, he might invite you to smoke some grass out back. That hippie store smell so familiar to a kid who could only afford to shop there, a kid who no matter how many times she washed that quilt she'd bought there to keep warm in the freezing upstate NY winters, would never be able to remove its original hempy, incense odor.
After a while, it surprisingly starts to mellow out, and I feel like I've stepped into one of those old second-hand vintage clothing stores that abounded near my college. Those shops managed by elderly Woodstock hippies who also sold incense, hemp bags, and patchouli soaps, and if you got to know the owner, he might invite you to smoke some grass out back. That hippie store smell so familiar to a kid who could only afford to shop there, a kid who no matter how many times she washed that quilt she'd bought there to keep warm in the freezing upstate NY winters, would never be able to remove its original hempy, incense odor.