Heritage Blend
Abdul Samad Al Qurashi

Oh my God, this austere oudh (yes...thick, brown-dark, oily) is literally creamy, an incredibly smoky-mouldy-rubbery agarwood resin cream, finally purified and velvety. Really a "superb" fragrance. The "liquid" takes its long time to slide in precious drops from the sample glass to skin. By soon I catch the smoke, an incensey creamy smoke, typical of the really seasoned real oudhs. Simply heavenly under my "liturgical" nose. The rose is at this stage so far to be caught in the air, quite veiled by misty spices, resins, steam and leather (despite a soft Taif Rose's whiff seems to rise up from skin). The agarwood resin is of course by soon arousing such a rich congeries of kaleidoscopic nuances impossible to exhaustively render in vulgar words as the mine (yes, at the beginning you "see" old dark high ceilings rooms, old dusty "leather" books, massive ancient papers, old fornitures, stale aroma of fornitures brighting foams, boots polish, old leather sofà, carbon woods, stale pipe tobacco aroma, an hint of varnish and something turpenic). The spices (warm spices) play by soon a central role since those manage to round the smoke boasting it out paradoxically in a wearable and yummy way, so cozy and hypnotic. Gradually (frankly not before a couple of hours) the rose definitely emerges with its charge of romantic sophistication and botanic Victorian neutrality. Anyway, while the rose oil is basically accessorial in my opinion, the warm spices keep to be more essential (in particular saffron, black pepper and cloves, I suppose). It seems to detect traces of fir resins, suede and black musk too despite the mastering note is a veritable pure really aged oudh. The boots polish smoky-leathery vibe conjures me vaguely the By Kilian Pure Oudh's (rubbery-incensey) undertone but while the By Kilian's one is a raw (partially harsh and probably drier) moody stuff ASAQ Heritage Blend is pure creamy (slightly brighter at the end) silky bliss. Along the way the aroma becomes even more mild, sweetly spicy and wearable; in this phase it seems to detect soft balsams, cocoa, pipe tobacco, smooth sandalwood, floral nuances and warm resins (warm ambergris too). Perfect, finally smooth and really really sophisticated. An immensely evocative and "atmospherical" one this dark oudh is a pleasure to be enjoyed in solitude while drinking a peated whisky with the beloved on your side.
P.S= the final wake is amazing, the woody-resinous/floral accord performs a sort of "red berry-like" effect.

This is what Heritage Blend smells like, to me: I walk into an old Chinese apothecary. At the back of the rather dark, dusty space, there is an ancient wooden medicine cabinet, the kind with hundreds of separate little drawers and compartments. The air around it is thick with the brown smell of age-old wood varnish that has broken down and seeped into the air. I open the little drawers and inside I find all manner of weird, dried, desiccated things, like dried roots, pungent spices and herbs, the remains of what looks like rose petals, and maybe tiny animal parts. Everything smells leathery, pungent, and aged. There is a hint of varnish, something turpenic almost. The old Chinese man watching me explains that these dried and salted things can be used to cure all kind of modern-day ailments. The whole shop smells strange – medicinal, ancient, woody – but also clean and spiritual in a way.

It's not something I can easily understand, not with this Western mind of mine, and the effect is like stepping off a sunny street into a darkened doorway and suddenly falling down a hole into a different time and place. Later on, I smell a drier, cleaner woods accord, somewhat familiar to me – it smells like dry logs smoking gently on a fire, or like leather being roasted in a tannery. The scent slowly transitions from the spicy, almost savory beginnings to slightly sweeter and drier accords in the later stages.

This is not technically my first exposure to real oud, as I've been working my way up through the lighter sections of the ASAQ catalog and one or two thus far have contained real oud – but these other blends kept the oud note firmly in the background, so I never got to examine the note in isolation. Until now, that is. So, this is it, folks. This is the real stuff right here, and technically, what this blend contains is aged oud. I'm excited to finally smell the material that so many Western firms spend peanuts trying to emulate using synthetics, aroma-chemicals, and nagamortha.

The oil is quite thick and brown. It has a powerful smell right off the bat, but it does not smell at all barnyardy or animalic as I had been fearing. I cannot smell any rose, let alone a dark rose. The saffron in this might be the note that is creating that aged, leathery effect I am getting, and may also explain the spicy, pungent feel to the opening hour or two.

It's quite something. I can't think of a single Western fragrance that is similar in effect or overall smell as Heritage Blend. The closest I can come – and in itself, this is deeply inadequate – is the old apothecary fragrances that Diptyque used to put out in the seventies, like L'Eau and L'Eau Lente – or even a modern-day niche fragrance such as Onda, which is equally leathery and mysterious and closed to facile interpretation. None of these fragrances are smellalikes, it must be pointed out. But if you can imagine an ancient, primordial-ooze type vibe, then you are half way there.

There is nothing overly complex about this one yet my impressions may not be quite in sync with the ingredients. For the most part, I get a Borneo style oud, some (clean, fresh) musk, and some floral notes that I can't quite place - a simple triad that gives this a somewhat feminine appeal. Reading a couple of rather uninformative descriptions online however this claims to have rose, oud, and spices. I wouldn't have figured this floral note as a rose but as I re-examine it I'm thinking that might be true, mild but true, and that the spices are saffron and maybe something else. The oud is very clean, though, which makes me think this is Borneo style oud (think Oud Wood). I still maintain there is a touch of musk, though. Although Borneo oud tends to get higher praise than most other types, I dislike the cleanliness of it and prefer the fruitier Cambodian or the funkier and more interesting Indian (Assam) ouds. In addition, I'm just not a fan of saffron, believe it or not. Still, this blend is not bad and I'm sure there are fans out there. It garnered some interesting remarks as well: my 3-year-old daughter told me I smell good like wet wipes (3-year olds say the darnedest things) and my colleague at work asked me if the windows were open because the office smelled "fresh." It's a "clean" blend for sure, easy to wear, and a great starting point for those looking to explore eastern styled perfume blends.