Nordwurst

And that's supposed to taste good? Strange mixture, I thought to myself. But well, pineapple on pizza tastes good too.
(He didn't say that...!)
Besides, the Cafè Xerjoff is known for its sometimes unusual specialties.
It certainly looks interesting how it is served: the individual layers of ingredients are not completely mixed. There's no spoon, you're supposed to sip your way through the individual layers.
I look around uncertainly. Some of the other visitors are enjoying opulent cocktails with all kinds of ripe fruit, others have ice-cold drinks with mint sprigs and lemon slices in front of them.
The drink of my choice seems rather inconspicuous, but perhaps I should try it first before judging.
I sip carefully from the thin top layer and immediately taste a refreshing, tart mixture of citrus fruits and a hint of ginger.
Wow! I smack my lips a few times to dissect the ingredients on my tongue. No sugar for miles, no sweetness at all. Really delicious.
The next sip leads me to the actual main part of my order - a surprisingly well-balanced blend of ginger and black coffee, with a low concentration of citrus fruits and - at least that's what it says on the menu - tobacco blossom. I wouldn't have ordered it if I could have mixed the ingredients myself, but it works brilliantly (see the pineapple on the pizza...) The delicious and clearly perceptible coffee makes the drink a pleasure not only in the height of summer. Spring, fall, office, evening - I could order this anytime.
Then comes the crema at the bottom. Huh? At the bottom?
I don't know how they did it, but the more I sip with relish, the more the brew is rounded off by soft, creamy musk and amber. Nice and smooth.
I lean back contentedly and enjoy my drink, but then choke hard when I'm served the bill. It's almost cheeky for such a small (but still very pretty) glass.
But well, you don't treat yourself to a treat like this every day.
Tomorrow we'll just have Tk pizza again, you know what kind.

Summer in a bottle.
I wanted to add nothing more and nothing less to my manageable fragrance portfolio.
Can't be that difficult, I thought to myself. I know what I like,
i thought to myself...
Well, to summarize, I must see my search as a path to knowledge: Because I have realized that there are obviously many more fragrance nuances that I do NOT like, i.e. those that I would like to perceive on and around me over a period of several hours, on several days, ideally spread over several months and years. (Congratulations to all conquerors of this sentence monster.)
Many really good and undoubtedly well-made creations crossed my nose. It was often just little things that made me sigh "hmjanöirgendwiednoch" at the end of the day.

Torino 21, for example. Good, fresh, but a bit too much mint, thank you.
Uden? Hach...yeah no...it's too citrusy at the start.
Oltremare perhaps? Oh, tea - great. But not this tea.
Ok, then another tea? Wulong Cha?
Yes, but no. It's missing no idea what, but it's missing.
Erba Gold - too fruity.
Acqua di Sale - is that sage? No? I think it smells like sage.
(By the way, I'm not linking the fragrances because I don't want to, but because it's not working right now.)
Imagination, Renaissance, Greenley, all good to very good, but still not what I was looking for. My nose is obviously a bitch.

But long story long, while browsing through the reviews I stumbled across Birkholz's Corsica at some point. I had already been there, it was great back then.
Sighted the fragrance notes, got curious.
Top notes with the classics bergamot and lime, plus mint and violet leaf. So far, so good. Reads like 90% of all summer refreshes at first.
Heart notes of lavender and rosemary. I like that, ok. Plus plum (drawing in air through my teeth, I hear myself thinking "uh, could be too sweet") and ... Sea salt? All right, they want to evoke aquatic associations, let's give them a break.
Base notes moss, musk, sandalwood.
No experiments. Sounds solid.

So I ordered an original fragrance sample from Birkholz (and received 6 more), took a deep sniff after the first evaporation on my arm and thought "Wow! That's a good one."
Second sniff: "It's really good! I hope it doesn't tip in any direction that I don't like again."

It didn't. Hooray! What I smelled was a feather-light, fresh, non-pungent citrus with barely perceptible but still present mint. No in-your-face freshness that screams so loudly until the last person realizes that it's supposed to be a summer fragrance. Perhaps it is also the very slight sweetness of the plum that rounds it all off. However, if I didn't know it was there, I wouldn't recognize it. Fortunately.
The fragrance doesn't change much later on. None of the ingredients push themselves rudely to the fore. The citrus fruits quietly fade away at some point, but continue to beckon on the horizon until the end. Musk and sandalwood gently cream my nostrils.
Sea salt? Moss? Hmm, difficult. Could be that they were there. But in the end I don't care, because all in all this is the summer fragrance I've been looking for for so long.

I close my eyes and walk along the stony country lanes of Corsica again. I can't see the sea yet, but the wind tells me that it will soon appear majestically on the horizon. More sultry words spill out of my amygdala, but I manage to regain control and get back to the point.
The longevity could be better, but couldn't it always be with fragrances from this genre?

So, whoever has made it this far is my hero. Thanks for hanging in there.

It's five thirty. I'm standing in the bathroom, my hands leaning on the edge of the sink, trying to see who the guy in the mirror is. My temples are throbbing and the mirror light is burning out my retinas. The night was far too warm and far too short. The microsleep in the shower with my head against the wall obviously didn't help either
obviously didn't help either.
The thought of the endless meetings that are filling up my calendar today makes me shiver.
So go on, it's no use. The question of what perfume I wear on days like this doesn't arise. My headache causes my senses to develop a hypersensitivity to everything. Light, sounds, smells - it can all go.
Almost everything. On the shelf is the crystal-clear bottle of "Gentle fluidity (Silver) | Maison Francis Kurkdjian", filled with an equally crystal-clear perfume, even the tube of the atomizer is made of a material that seems to be almost invisible in the liquid so as not to disturb the overall impression.
And the image that results is program.
2 sprays on the neck, close your eyes and take a deep breath. This cool, tart freshness of juniper berry pervades the whole body and wakes me up. It feels as if the fragrance molecules are cleansing my clogged synapses, penetrating to the tips of my fingers and toes and airing my body internally. Breathe in again. The day won't be so bad...
I don't notice other fragrance notes separately, which certainly contribute to the overall composition. I also find the fragrance very linear, which I find very positive. On days like this, I don't need oud, rose or leather that after a while jumps around the corner shouting "Surprise!" and makes my temples throb rumba. I need exactly this cool transparency that "Gentle fluidity (Silver) | Maison Francis Kurkdjian" gives me. So we fight our way through meetings together, almost the whole working day, because after a maximum of 6 hours the fragrance quietly recedes. But that's enough for me, I somehow manage the rest on my own.

"Bloody hell!" That's what I thought when good old Lord George suddenly and forcefully pressed his angular soap block into my face on first contact. I had expected a little more restraint from the English aristocracy.
OK, never judge a book by its top note, or something like that. I like it soapy and clean, so let's give ourselves a few minutes to get to know each other better: Hello Lord, may I call you Georgie? No? That's good too.
Awkward silence.
I was gobsmacked and gutted. This is supposed to be the much-praised fragrance from Penhaligon's? What's wrong with them? Or with me? Or with Lord Gerorge? There must be something more to come...!

And lo and behold, good things come to those who wait. And only for a few minutes. Because the soap block is soon joined by a very pleasent sweetness. Lovely, my dear!
The soap remains, as it should, but now all the ingredients in this composition create an extremely pleasing blend. Is it tonka bean? Is it rum? My unaristocratic nose is unable to verify this, but nervertheless it detects a wonderfully unobtrusive cleanliness, clothed in a fine gourmand coat. The lord just needs a little time to show his true colors.

I lean back, very pleased, Lord George sits on my lap and swings his legs happily and in a good mood. Things have worked out between us after all.
Wonderful, isn't it?