Babieca nBitor

We will no longer tolerate them stealing our raspberry jelly candies and making off into the pine forests. Bring me Babieca, my ugly horse, get the Andalusians out of the stable! Carry tobacco leaves in front of their caves! We want to set fire! Damn, how it smokes! Do you smell the creeping black rivers of thick sugar beet molasses, the Haribo raspberry caramel mass under the hay bales in the meadow? The tobacco becomes soft like malt-brown sauce, pulling the syrup like wet socks. The stuff scorches the dried marshes into warm quicksand of earth. There sinks a saddle on which I ride and becomes one with the steaming loot.
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nBitor, the brand of the house 'The Perfumery' in Barcelona, is dedicated to the culture and history of Spain. The scents of the brand are created by various perfumers. "Babieca" is one of three fragrances contributed by Miguel Matos, and it thematizes the horse of the knight El Cid from the time of the Spanish Reconquista. The legend says it was supposed to be a particularly ugly horse. With Matos' typical wink, the motto of this creation is "Never judge a book by its cover".
The fragrance wraps bright, warm tobacco, spicy hay, animalistic musk and civet notes, as well as saffron-dyed leather, in a shell of extremely smoky and earthy cypriol. These notes are countered by pine-like juniper in the top note and a burnt sweet accord of caramel and black vanilla, complemented by fruity raspberry notes, which receive a brighter touch through aldehydes. The peach-like and at the same time leathery-animalistic notes of the osmanthus flower seemingly serve as a joint piece. The development roughly goes from burnt to earthy-leathery, from fruity-sweet to spicy-brown. Whether the smoky-animalistic aromas or rather the burnt fruity-sweet notes are meant to embody the ugly exterior of the horse, with the other representing the beautiful core, remains up to the wearer. A Matos does not primarily aim to please, but rather to surprise, take different paths, and certainly not to be taken too seriously. For me, it is quite wearable. Babieca projects clearly to moderately over several hours.

(With thanks to Chizza)