Brand: Alkemia
Scent Description: A silk road intoxication of bourbon oak barrel cured cognac and rhodomel (flower) and melomel (fruit) meads infused with the sultry warmth of Ceylon cinnamon, cardamon, anise, and mace; caramelized sugar musk; Tonka beans lightly soaked in Turkish coffee; and ambrette seed musk.
My sample is a couple years old, so the notes have had time to settle and age for a while.
I get a sweet husky musk with a good helping of smooth, dry cinnamon. I’m picking up the mead/caramel as sort of a golden sweetness in the background. It’s almost vanilla, but not quite. After about an hour, the oak becomes more prominent, making for a woody base with the warm spices and musk resting on top. This is a cozy spice blend that manages to stay far away from holiday cinnamon territory.
I thought I would like this more and I was disappointed with how “perfume-y” it was, much like the other reviewer. I get a tiny bit of coffee and fruits, but there’s just so much going on here it doesn’t allow any of the notes to shine through and do their thing.
I like it, but it is a bit “perfume-y”. With so many notes, this is a hard one to pin down, its mainly a warm, spicy, red, woody smell. There’s a softness to this which is cut by something that smells a bit like black pepper. I don’t see a black pepper note in here, but there’s a definite peppery-ness. The cinnamon is nicely in the background, adding a touch of heat but no red hots.