BrianBuchanan

Gin Fizz Cocktail : Mix gin, lemon juice, sugar and crushed ice, shake it up and pour on sparkling water.

Gin Fizz Vintage Perfume : Gin, lemon, a little sweetness and a bitter fizz, a musky-woody baseline.

Doing the smell of a cocktail is just holding a mirror to nature.
This doesn't comment on the smell, or interpret it; it's rudimentary - and more or less a copy.
It seems a shame to put so much effort into such an empty idea.
At least when Roudnitska made Diorissimo - his portrait of muguet which appeared the following year - he had the grace to make it an arabesque.

Where perfumery's ambitions were once limited to re-presenting the smell of flowers, often one at a time, with Berlin im Winter perfume has returned to the simple aim of portraiture. Not with flowers or even a garden walk, now the reference is drawn from the interior world that most of us inhabit. So, possibly this is more of an interior landscape - because there's no principle actor here, just a background array to give atmosphere (to the wearer - one assumes).

It's like a café - or bar - where boozy and sweet notes predominate (even to the point of feeling a bit sickly at first) and this is backed up with bitter notes : woody, coffee and smokey (how retro! - smoking indoors). And perhaps there's cake too...

The odours effectively transport you to this undefined place of congeniality, but why Berlin?
Being a snug and enclosed space there's no sense of winter in this sweet and convivial scent, but then - as if someone opened a door and let in a draught - it develops a cool myrrh-like note; clever perfumery this - going from warm to cool, and sweet to dry...

But, as somebady just mentioned to me, it smells "bizarre", with a note that's a bit like a stuffy cellar; varnish and the yeasty smell of barrels (the early showing of lenticus & myrrh perhaps?)

The note of myrrh extends into the drydown to finish with more than a hint of Bertrand Duchaufour's Timbuktu (2004). Which illustrates the point that this leans on the romantic overtones of its name for context. Without that pointer you could interpret this in completely different ways; a café bar in Berlin or a mythic location in central Africa.

In the same way, if you saw a 16th century oil painting of a man in a moustache, goatee beard and ruff collar, without reading label you couldn't be sure if it were Sir Walter Raleigh or an unknown Venetian you were looking at.

You may have noticed I'm referring to this as a 'scent' and not a perfume. For the early part of its development it feels like a 'parfum d'ambience' that's gone from illustrating a background to taking over the show with full intent. Which - to my mind - makes it close to unwearable; the sort of thing that would try to Wear You and keep you hidden behind its heavy facade.


Berlin im Winter is interesting in that it tries something different from the norm, and - on it's own terms - it's not unsuccessful.

But there’s more than one thing about it that's borderline unpleasant, and so, if it really were the scent of - lets say - a cellar bar in West Berlin, it would soon have me heading for the exit in seach of some other place that's a bit more salubrious.

Jungle Elephant; it's probably called that - not because it's animal - but because it's so Wild.

It's a crazy mix of vanillin, sweet powdery heliotrope and spices - including cumin, which for some noses notoriously smells of sweat.

Elephant's the sort of thing you couldn't see Anybody wearing - except maybe a big hairy transvestite; perfumed and powdered - and smelly armpits...

It's a marvelous burlesque, a fantastic spectacle; something I would never wear - but always keep a sample of, to sniff when I want to laugh and feel silly and over the top.

If the seventies chypre was leather and tweed, this version is pink suede and fruity dust.
It's light, minimal, and (smells) completely synthetic, but it has nuance and movement.
How did madame Laurent conjure something that feels so modern - and invokes the spirit of chypre at the same time?
Is it some kind of postmodern magic?

Now that synthetic vanillin is everywhere, people imagine that's the smell of vanilla. But it's not like cheap ice cream.
With a dirty underbelly the vanilla pod is not plain at all.

And calling this a gourmand is equally erroneous.

More-ish and delicious, balanced and mobile;
it's multilayered: Yummy
but not dummy.

If you've only got space for one gourmand, this could well be it.


[One word of caution. I've got a sample of the old version - with its chocolate-bronze juice.
It's fabulous.
Don't like the look of that pink one though ...]