This is off the charts! Absolutely, stratospheric! Life-changingly good! I mean...holy moly! I have used tobacco absolute materials of varying origins and they are all pretty fantastic. However, as surprisingly thick and potent as they appear, they can bit tricky to use and fight for pride of place in a composition. Anyone who thinks it's easy or linear to present tobacco in this way is naive to say the least. The opening for me is like the blend of classic perfumes in that you get a realistic honey note and animalics in the background humming away. Then the tobacco builds and what a fine tobacco material he's using, deeply, deeply faceted you can just fall into it and be enveloped by the dark, seductive goop. Now I smoke cigars and have been known to have a pipe now and again and I can honestly say this tobacco although incredibly authentic, doesn't evoke the saccharine sweet tobacco that I usually go for. Nor does it have the manure or peppery edge of a fine Habana cigar and this shouldn't surprise anyone but it doesn't smell of the smoke of tobacco, but instead the beautiful sensation of sticking your head right into one of those tubs of pipe tobacco they have in the tobacconists. This is a particularly mellow tobacco and probably not one I would choose to smoke, as I mentioned I prefer the almost too sweet smelling stuff because it remains sweet in the smoking, which I like. Something like this would smell DIVINE raw but that's not why I buy tobacco to sit around admiring and not smoking it. It does have a hay like quality (maybe some hay absolute) but likely just from the tobacco, bitter coffee nuance, animalics, natural sweetness, woodiness, booze, it's a complete treat and takes me right back to being a kid and buying tobacco (perhaps when I shouldn't have been?) from Henry Monks which also sold shotguns! This is a revelation and the attar is very thick and very dark and would likely stain your clothes badly but in all likelihood you could spill this and it would take about 3 years to migrate out of the bottle, if it even moved at all?
Released in 2016
Classified as a Oriental Woody
Nose behind this scent is Sultan Pasha, an independent attar perfumer based in London. He doesn’t have professional training, but he does have some background in chemistry. His attars are known for incredibly high quality natural ingredients sourced from top suppliers, with only a tiny amount of synthetics (minimum amount) to finish off some scents.
A little background regarding this scent: This scent is based off one of Sultan Pasha's favorite memories where a family friend would visit his villa, and this family friend used to ride on his huge horse and he always had a pipe in his mouth that gave off the scent of the finest sweet tobacco he had ever smelt in his life.
Top: Hawthorn, Saffron, Cognac, Coffee and Tobacco Heart: Osmanthus, Damask Rose, Heliotrope, Tonka Bean, Cacao and Jasmine Base: Hay, Amber, Ambergris, Tonka Bean, Musk, Civet, Immortelle, Castoreum, Hyrax, Oud, Vanilla, Virginian Cedar, Himalayan Cedar and Juniper
Super tangy and sour like tamarind opening, its dark, punchy and fruity. Dries down to a sweet tobacco, with a very gentle smoke, and the tangy fruity tamarind from the opening, and just a touch of dark cocao. Its like smelling the tobacco from a pipe, rather than the tobacco leaf it self. Its a warm comforting spicy tobacco, with sweet tangy fruitiness. Opens up dark and intense, but settles into a gorgeous rich and sweet warm spicy scent.
Projection is beast mode for the first couple of hours, with it then settling in the moderate range, very intense and strong up close but gentle from an arms length. Longevity is excellent over 10+.
This is a perfect scent for fall and winter, as an evening wear scent, casually, formally and as a night out scent.
Overall score of 5/5, one of the best tobacco scents out there, superb!