recipe

Scent Semantics, February 7, 2022
by

Scent Semantics, February 7, 2022

This month’s Scent Semantics word is “taste”. Among other challenges in writing about that word and fragrance, I don’t own many gourmand fragrances, it’s not a category that particularly appeals to me above others. Then my blogging friend Nose Prose posted recently about Belgian chocolates that were inspired by Guerlain fragrances, ordered after an article about them in Fragrantica, and that sent me in a new direction.

It is a truism in reading and writing about fragrance that the sense of smell is intimately linked to the sense of taste; and we’ve had our noses rubbed in that, so to speak, during a pandemic in which an early symptom for many people, including one of my daughters, was the loss of their sense of smell. The absence of smell also deprives most people of their sense of taste, and that was her experience. (Luckily, hers started to come back after about a week, as she recovered from COVID-19 pretty quickly, and is now fully restored). Without smell, there is very little taste, which chefs know well, but we usually think of that in terms of spices and aromatic edibles. Some chefs and others have taken this a step further; I love the notion of creative food artists taking their inspiration from perfume, as well as perfumes inspired by cocktails.

Here’s what Nose Prose wrote, in part, about the Guerlain-inspired chocolates after actually ordering and tasting them:

The milk chocolate heart, inspired by L’Homme Idéal, is half praliné with roasted sesame seeds and half almond and green tea “with a hint of matcha.” This one is the most textured of the three, which suits itssavory flavor notes. Matcha seems to find a way to go well with everything.

The red heart made of white chocolate is inspired by La Petite Robe Noire and filled with half dark chocolate ganache with cherries and half praliné with hazelnuts. This fusion brings together the best of both worlds, which are usually enjoyed separately.

Finally, the dark heart inspired by Mon Guerlain is half dark chocolate ganache with bergamot and half milk chocolate ganache with lavender and chili. This I found to be a brilliant combination and despite my usual preference for milk chocolate over dark chocolate, this was my favorite of the three. I would love to see bergamot used more in food and drink besides Earl Grey tea.

Box of Valentine's heart-shaped chocolates
Neuhaus “perfume” chocolates; image from Neuhaus.

Aren’t they pretty? I love chocolate, especially dark chocolate, but it seems as if there are more drinks inspired by perfumes than chocolates. There are “mixologists” who have created cocktails based on famous fragrances. Vogue magazine even published a few recipes so we can make some at home, and so has Creed. I’m not much of a cocktail aficionado, but the descriptions of these makes them sound very alluring. Probably the most famous bar doing this work is Fragrances, a bar in the Berlin Ritz-Carlton, which began with a cocktail based on Guerlain’s Jicky: “One perfume in particular, Jicky by Guerlain, the oldest continuously produced perfume in the world, inspired him to deconstruct its ingredients. The result was a cocktail made with bergamot, vanilla, lavender, rosemary, and lemon.” Doesn’t that sound delicious?

Ten years ago, the Food 52 blog posted about a special four-course dinner designed as a collaboration between the chef, fragrance house MCMC, and perfumer Anne McClain. Now that’s a challenge! It makes sense to base cocktails on fragrances, as they both use notes of various herbs, fruits, florals — but an entire dinner?

My fantasy dinner menu would probably start with a citrus of some kind, to emulate top notes — perhaps a grapefruit salad with mint leaves, garnished with jasmine blossoms for scent only, inspired by Jo by Jo Loves.

Salad of grapefruit segments with mint
Grapefruit mint salad; the Food Network.

That could be followed by a cold soup, maybe with melon, tangerine and plum, harking to Le Parfum de Therèse by Edmond Roudnitska.

Bowl of chilled plum soup with flavored ice
Plum, honeydew, and tarragon soup; Gourmet magazine

What to do about a main course, though? I don’t know many fragrances based on the odors of fish, meat, or poultry, so we’ll either have to stay vegetarian or pick a main course where the focus is on an aromatic sauce. Basil is a clear contender, but that immediately brings to mind pesto, which has a lot of garlic, so my menu will have to be more creative. I think a Thai dish would suit, with a combination of basil, coconut, spices, lime, ginger — and that sounds a lot like Yosh’s Ginger Ciao.

Bowl of vegan Thai curry
Vegan thai basil curry with lime and coconut; from Let’s Be Vegan.

Dessert course? I think that must be a lemon/vanilla soufflé, with a touch of bergamot and mandarin orange, inspired by Shalimar Souffle de Parfum, created by Thierry Wasser.

Lemon souffle in ramekin
Lemon soufflé; image from The New York Times.

Coffee, anyone? There are so many fragrances that include notes of coffee, I’ll let you decide which one appeals to you to finish out our fragrant dinner. What might you have on your own fragrant menu? Don’t forget to check out the posts by the other Scent Semantics bloggers!

Scent Semantics blog list
Scent Sample Sunday: Juniper Sling and Scenthusiasm
by

Scent Sample Sunday: Juniper Sling and Scenthusiasm

I’ve been wanting a bottle of Penhaligon’s fragrance Juniper Sling for a long time, since I got a tiny mini bottle of it in a Penhaligon’s gift coffret and sampled it in place of 4160 Tuesdays’ Scenthusiasm, which hadn’t been available to me in 2018 when I read a review of it on the blog “I Scent You A Day.” Happily, since 2018, I’ve been able to snag a full bottle of Scenthusiasm and, now, one of Juniper Sling, in Penhaligons’s summer sale. So I’m fully stocked with gin-inspired fragrances, thank you, to go with a gin cocktail (click the link for a recipe for one made with Fentiman’s Rose Lemonade).

Revisiting my former thoughts on Juniper Sling, I still find that the juniper berries dominate the opening, and that note persists for a while. It lends the fragrance an aromatic aura and adds to the sense that this scent is truly unisex. It’s also an ideal scent for hot, humid, summer weather — herbal and cool. Created by Olivier Cresp, its notes are listed as follows: Top notes are angelica, cinnamon, orange brandy, and juniper berries; middle notes are cardamom, orris root, leather and pepper; base notes are vetiver, cherry, sugar and amber. I like that I can clearly smell the cardamom, and now that I have a full bottle and can really spritz, I can also smell the angelica. Not much cinnamon, thank goodness — I can only take cinnamon in very small quantities in fragrance, much as I like to cook with it. Orris root softens the edges of the herbs and spices. Vetiver is detectable in the base, but I can’t say that I smell cherry or sugar. An amber accord may be there, and there is definitely something warm that balances the vetiver. Juniper Sling is a transparent sort of fragrance, like a limpid pool on a hot summer day — clear and sparkling. It doesn’t last more than a few hours on my skin, but I’ll be more than happy to reapply as needed.

Scenthusiasm, on the other hand, is more floral, though it is also very summery, cool, aromatic, and refreshing. It was created for a Hendrick’s Gin event — not to smell like the gin itself, but to complement the floral and herbal notes in Hendrick’s.

Hendrick's Gin cocktail and recipe
Hendrick’s Gin Cucumber Lemonade

If you like the sound of Gin Cucumber Lemonade, try the recipe and let us know how it is in the comments (or try my recipe linked above, or try both)!

In Sarah McCartney’s own words:

Scenthusiasm is made with natural orris (iris) butter, rose absolute, lemon and orange essential oils, cucumber extract, juniper absolute (of course) and coriander essential oil. To make it last, boost the scents of the naturals and too smooth them out, we blended it with our favourite simple musk, fresh air and white wood note synthetics.  It’s inspired by gin, and has gin notes but mostly it’s a floral at heart: rose and iris, with the herbs dancing around it.

I think Scenthusiasm is also quite unisex, though it may lean a bit more traditionally feminine. Sam at “I Scent You A Day” wrote that the orange and lemon notes risk making it go “a bit Pimms”, but I’m not qualified to judge that! My lack of familiarity with Pimms several years ago resulted in my allowing two of my three children (all under the age of 12, as I recall) choose it as a canned drink to go with their lunches at Kew Gardens, on a day-trip from London. As all the food and drinks were together, I’m sure the checkout cashier thought I was planning to drink the lot myself!

Luckily the older of the two would-be Pimms drinkers took one sip, realized it was alcoholic, and alerted me before her (much younger) brother drank any. Not that it would have killed either of them, of course, but one doesn’t like to render a five year-old tipsy. So having sensibly got for myself a simple lemonade, I switched with the children and drank one of the Pimms, pouring out the other surreptitiously on the ground as both had been opened. It was fine as a summer drink, but on a later trip to London I was introduced to Aperol spritzes, and that is now a favorite (nor does it raise embarrassing memories).

I really love Scenthusiasm. One might say, I am scenthusiastic about it, lol. It’s a delightful summer floral with the unexpected references to gin botanicals, more aromatic than sweet. Definitely not fruity, nor green. The cucumber note is noticeable, and it’s an unusual note to find in perfume. One of the few I’ve been able to find with a prominent cucumber note is a 2020 launch from By Kilian, called Roses On Ice. Lo and behold, it is supposed to smell like Hendrick’s Gin, the original inspiration for Scenthusiasm. I may have to try it some day, but for now, I’m very happy with my purchase from a favorite independent small perfumer.

Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays

I could see a couple wearing Juniper Sling and Scenthusiasm to complement each other’s fragrance. But which would each one choose? Which would you choose? Or would you, like me, say “Both, please!”?