Sundowner
Tauer (2021)

Stunning masculine fragrance. It's a slightly sunny syrupy gourmand with incense and wood that makes it lean a lot more masculine. It has depth and complexity without becoming too heavy. I really like it, for me I'd say there is leather too and that makes me feel less keen on wearing it often. On another person, I'd adore it.

I own an original, ready-made Tauer’s Sundowner sample for almost a year now. Being quite honest I’ve been barely wearing it, therefore the sample is almost full.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Sundowner before, and was excited to try it. Well, I’m not going to lie, this was a let down and huge dissapointment.

Sundowner is unique on one hand, on the other hand I’ve smelled this genre of scent plenty of times before. I detect weird, oily sun lotion, boozy drink with rotten oranges and some cocoa-oriental notes in the base. That’s pretty much it. To me this perfume is an epitome of such drink, okay, let’s say drank at sunset on the beach.

It is a let down, because I was told it’s a solid, pretty good tobacco scent. No tobacco whatsoever for me. I was kinda’ misleaded.

Longevity is over 9 hours, sillage is above average.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice overall and I can tell the Tauer signature and Tauer quality are up there. It’s just not what I expected.

Sundowner is interesting because, despite the much advertized chocolate and orange notes, it gets the salivary glands working without being foody. The first blast is a foghorn of amber, spices, booze, and veiny pipe tobacco, but there is an undertow of medicinal sourness that smells like wood chips left to ferment in a rusty barrel. The Tauer signature is strong, namely the rubbery smoke reminiscent of freshly creosote-ed fences, the brash salty amber, the piercing cinnamon, all set against a watery floral note that might be rose. There are, at least initially, some parallels to PHI Une Rose de Kandahar, minus the fruity apricot conserve, and to the muscular expansiveness of L’Air du Desert Marocain.

But the more I wear it, the more I think Sundowner does something special. In draping the front end with all this almost fermented, grungy funk, Tauer sets the stage for the tobacco note to emerge through a new curtain rather than the usual one of dried fruit, gingerbread, and vanilla. And, as it turns out, sour is better than sweet when it comes to carving out the true scent of tobacco leaf because Sundowner features one of the best, most true to life renditions of tobacco that I have ever smelled. It is briny, rich, tart, and sweet all at once. How this was accomplished, I neither know nor care. When you find the spirit of tobacco bottled, you just buy it and let it take you on a magic carpet ride every time.

Sundowner, to me, is Mugler's A*Men Pure Havane if it were a niche fragrance. If you remove the patchouli from Pure Havane and replace it with cinnamon in the top and amber in the base then that is what I get from Sundowner.

I get a lot of cinnamon in the opening with an undercurrent of sweet tobacco. Once the opening spices fade the tobacco really comes into play and is the star of the show for the rest of the fragrance.

I put this on around 7pm and upon waking the next morning I had a faint vanilla/amber/tobacco skin scent which was pleasant.

It does feel as though the sweet, spicy, tobacco thing has been done to death however Andy Tauer still manages to keep things interesting here and while I would not be rushing out to buy a bottle of Sundowner it is still an good fragrance and definitely worth trying for tobacco fans out there.

The ‘lonesome rider’ of perfume creation ventures into the old gents’ club, all dark recesses, ancient leather furniture and musty airs full of grizzled intrigue. A pipe tobacco-led perfume immediately brings up such associations, and it’s a shame Tauer does little to dispel them – instead the sprinkling of cinnamon and cocoa ‘dust’ only strengthen the impression. This kind of thing is not really my bag, especially as there is a pretty safe vanilla amber coming up behind, but Tauer is, as usual, bang on the nose – true to his ingredients, which have the usual depth and sonority associated with his house, with nothing seeming out of place. I do love the peat-and-dried-fruits inflection of the tobacco in the opening.

A golden, blonde tobacco with a freshness in the opening, provided perhaps by the listed "citrus sparkles", along with dry, dusty spices, & underpinned by the dark, woody-leathery note of cypriol. Over the first few minutes the freshness fades, & the cypriol becomes more prominent. I don't notice the rose note, but l do get a whiff of cinnamon around thirty minutes in. After four hours it all begins to mellow, sweetened slightly by tonka, vanilla & sandalwood. lt's never overly sweet though, as it's balanced by a savoury touch of ambergris in the base. It doesn't so much project as hover in a golden cloud of warm, mellow tobacco just above the skin, fading a little after six hours but lasting over twelve. l'm still catching very pleasant wafts from the sleeve of my robe the next morning.

l wouldn't say there's anything groundbreaking here, but if you prefer your tobacco fragrances on the lighter, blonder side rather than overly dark, harsh or bitter, you'd probably love this. And although tobacco might be thought of as traditionally masculine, l think a woman can easily wear this one. l can see myself enjoying it most in the hazy days of late summer/early autumn.