Special Reserve No.1

VINTAGE DEER MUSK - ASSAMI OUD - ROSE - AMBERGRIS

We set out to produce the finest attars we could, using the olfactory treasures that I have collected over the past 15 years from deer musk grains from Kashmir and Siberia to Ambergris from New Zealand and the Baltic and award-winning Rose oils from Taif and the Sultans Rose procured from Oriscent back in 2008.  For the base, we selected our Al Hind which is one of the finest traditional soaked oud oils we have produced was used for this as a base.  The standard approach when crafting attars based on Hindi ouds is to use a cheap distillation as most perfumers include oud to provide a robust and leathery base which does not value the elegant vintage wood notes associated with higher grade Hindis.  But to achieve our aim of making the finest attar, we refused to use anything except the very finest components. Not only did we use the finest ingredients collected over the last 15 years as part of our private collections, because of the sheer amount of expense and result scent, we had to name this Special Reserve No.1.  

We could have used Mughal but I felt that Al Hind was a more suitable candidate due to its comparative lightness, and soft barn rather than a strong barn note to force that would overpower everything. But even with this oil, due to the relatively gentle barn. I found myself adding more musk and more ambergris and more rose throughout the day to achieve the right balance. We initially intended to only use a portion of my olfactory treasures and keep some for reference and posterity.  However, we ended up using all the materials, grounding up gram after gram after gram after gram of Ambergris and deer musk grains from 2012 until nothing was left. 

The Pyrex jar that's that contains Special Reserve No.1 has quite a large amount of sweet chocolatey deer musk grains from Siberia, deer musk grains from Kashmir that possess a very floral and beautiful scent and a very generous amount of ground ambergris from around the world. It just smells divine. That's the only word I can use to describe this. 

The initial note is when you when you apply it well, when you take it out in the box of dipstick is a beautiful chocolatey rosy oud on steroids with an elegance that I cannot describe but can only be experienced.  Let me try to describe what is going on here.  Imagine a box of chocolates with a rose fondant inside it. But the chocolate and the rose forming a unified scent, bound together by musk and ambergris.  Completing this is a heavy incense laden oud oil enveloped in a haze of musk.

A key hallmark of high-quality attars is that it becomes difficult to identify one constituent from another constituent and when one starts and another finishes, but rather they weave in and out of each other in a beautiful marriage. Individual yet whole. 

As the attar starts the dry down, the rose is slowly released from its imprisonment by the oud. The rose oils that are used in this are masterpieces themselves and I literally I had bottles of Oriscent Sultan’s Rose from 2008 and the 2012 Taif Rose Award winner from Abdulsamad AlQureshi I purchased from their Medina branch for $400 for 2.5g that has held place of pride in my personal collection… and I just literally took the bottles and solemnly emptied them into the Pyrex bottle. I won’t deny that as I was pouring it, one of the thoughts that flashed before me was, what the hell am I doing?

For me, this is this is the end of an era as I deplete the aromatics I have personally collected and kept in my collection and represents the end of this phase of my olfactory education and experience never to be repeated and is my gift to the customers of Al Hashimi.

2.5g bottle depicted is for illustration purposes only 

Both 1g and 2.5g bottles are available to purchase.