Assam
Clandestine Laboratories (2022)

I've described perfumer Mark Sage's style as being dominated by minerality, and so it is with this brilliantly woody interpretation of oud, which attempts to magnify the tea tones in the central material.

Those who abhorrent an animalic oud need not be afraid of Assam, in which oud is medicinal and clean and round, with hints of smoke, dark wood, and patchouli amidst the tea. A subtle, only-there-if-you-look-for-it amber rounds out the composition.

It's one of the very best from this house.

Assam by Clandestine Laboratories (2022) is a bit of a Maltese Falcon for the brand, only released in 50ml bottles, only in limited-run batches announced on social media, selling out immediately; but it's also using real oud that often is sourced from different places each time due to oud's scarcity, so this isn't exactly some attempt to garner FOMO frenzy from anxious deep-pocketed collectors like many independent brands. If you're not exactly enamored with the concept of late-night sniping purchases, using bots, or reseller bidding wars that can top prices exponentially higher than original retail from the house, Clandestine Laboratories tends to be a better brand for you anyway, as the majority of things sold by them are not treated like Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering cards, being readily available aside from temporary outages. Perhaps this is worth the extra effort for the catch.

That said, Assam is the first of what has become a sub-range of limited edition scents, most of which retail higher than the standard ranges, and some of which only come in the 50ml size due to using a particularly difficult-to-source natural material. in Assam's case, it's pretty obvious that material is oud oil, and the scent treats the usual oud profile differently from most. While not a rose-oud, Assam treats the oud portion of the composition as if it was, being musky and phenolic, warm and rich, while simply omitting the rose/patchouli claptrap altogether. Usually when oud appears by itself, the composition is gritty, medicinal, overtly-woody, or having a harsher amber, but not here. There is patchouli and amber to be sure, alongside some citruses and slight aldehydes, but spices, saffron, vetiver, castoreum, and a tea profile fill the blank for the missing rose. I don't have to comment on performance. You already know.

What this leads to, is a scent that opens unlike anything you've ever smelled from an oud fragrance, then dries down to something that centers around showcasing the natural beauty of the material, muskiness and all; not a scent that goes more in the direction of being a wood perfume as you expect. There is almost a cola-like effervescence that would later repeat in Orpheus by Clandestine Laboratories (2022), and some of that fattiness in the musk I love about Silver by Clandestine Laboratories (2021). Assam doesn't smell like them at all necessarily, but there is a familiarity in material choices and adjacent supportive accords that gives Assam a Clandestine Laboratories "house DNA" that makes it unmistakably of the brand; so it doesn't feel like you're just buying another phoned-in take on the oud phenomenon. Thumbs up