Mandarina Duck Man Mandarina Duck 2006

Sure, the first association with the name of the Italian bag manufacturer Mandarina Duck somehow leans towards an orange duck -
some even think two steps further to the filleted version with crispy skin and sweet-sour sauce.

However, this is not really sweet-sour in most Chinese restaurants in our regions or those that pretend to have a geographical origin (not all are actually run by Chinese, just as not all pizzerias are led or cooked by Italians); rather, they tend to be sweet-fruity or sweet-strange. Usually, the perfectly balanced amount of vinegar is missing to truly justify the name.
My mother once received a recipe from an authentically Chinese restaurant decades ago and always conjured up a sweet-sour sauce that was so perfectly balanced that both pleasantly sweet and subtly sour aspects could be tasted. The downside: since then, most sweet-sour sauces in restaurants and snack bars taste almost unacceptable to me. Ergo: I don’t even order such things anymore.

And to get back to the point or the perfume: it would have been nice if Mandarina Duck Man had not only a sweet side but also a sour one to show. Certainly, the specified blood orange comes through relatively refreshingly fruity, but unfortunately a bit too one-dimensional, too dominant, and passionless. A bit more grapefruit might have been a welcome counterpoint; the peach doesn’t necessarily improve the fragrance experience overall, but it holds back decently, so that you can rather sense it than sniff it.

Cardamom and nutmeg ensure that at least the sweetness of the blood orange doesn’t completely run amok and contribute a bit of seriousness. A few recognizable traces of vetiver shyly peek around the corner, but one shouldn’t expect too much there.

I find the mention of oud and thyme exaggerated; there’s nothing to sniff from that for my nose. In contrast, musk comes in at the end as the usual “bouncer,” making the scent a bit harsher in the late phase.

Overall, Mandarina Duck Man, like many things, is purely a matter of taste. Certainly, it has something fruity-refreshing for summer, but at the same time, it is also quite simply constructed, and one reflexively wonders if that’s all there is and if more could have been possible.

For me personally, too harmless and trivial, but I must admit that it somehow fits the associated brand image as well as the slightly orange-tinted bottle. And with a few sour splashes and more power, it could have become really interesting.