Ambergris-laced Chocolate, Negus Cocktail & Cooking with Grey Amber

Have you ever tasted ambergris? If you stop to think that it was prized for centuries not only for its aromatic, but also aphrodisiac qualities, the question becomes less strange.  
The history of ambergris consumption is both varied and intriguing: At Falstaff's table (a character possibly based on Sir John Oldcastle) his favourite Sack wine was spiced with ambergris. Cardinal Richelieu ate ambregris-flavored chocolates and grey amber pastilles with gusto! On a sinister note, King Charles II of England famously and decadently breakfasted on eggs with (then as now very expensive) ambergris, and his mysterious death following a sudden stroke on February 16, 1685, gave rise to rumors of foul play; ambergris could have been the necessary concealer of poison, thanks to its rich, complex flavour. Indeed as I crumble a tiny lump to heat with my experimental eggs, I perceive that the pumice-like substance melts away easily with heat, imparting a delicious aroma. Even more decadently, during the Renaissance a dessert of iris flower jelly with ambergris posset (pictured below) was made for lords and queens; shooting two birds of expensive and fragrant materials with one stone!

But not all was for pleasure: During the Black Plague ambergris was considered to be prophylactic use. Historian Paul Freedman writes that "Ambergris was considered the sovereign preventative drug against the plague." and people carried a grain in their pocket to stave away the miasma in the air. Alas, it didn't work so well, but they must have smelled good while at it.

Later, the renowned gastronome Brillat-Savarin recommended a chocolate drink for warming up, boosting the immune system and at the same time savouring the best of refined foods: "Chocolat Ambré" (of which I present a recipe below) was made with shaved dark chocolate and hot water, laced with a substantial amount of grinded ambergris. La Marquise de Pompadour was fond of eating truffles and celery soups followed by cups of chocolat ambré "to raise the spirits and arouse the passions".

In the Middle East men consume ambergris to stimulate their sexual prowess while women believe the practice helps with infertility. Ibn Battuta, known as "the Traveler of Islam", narrates to have observed with astonishment in a city in Persia that people ate hashish and ambergris unabashedly, possibly believing ambergris to boost the narcotic effect of the drug. A lusciously erotic experience involves crushing a small dried lump of ambergris (percehd on the edge of the spoon) into organic coconut oil and allowing it to macerate for months before using. In Morocco it is traditional to use ambergris with tea; how a grain of ambergris sticked  inside the teapot's cover flavors the tea by mere contact with the vapor for years along is a miracle of nature's essences. As Karen of Globetrotter Diaries says, "Ambergris to liquids is much like 3D to movies; it gives new meaning to the otherwise familiar." I prefer to call it umami for the nose, the missing link in the realm of the senses.

"But is it safe to ingest?", you might be asking yourselves. Relax. Prior to the turn of the 20th century, ambergris was used by bartenders, liquor rectifiers, and makers of cordials & syrups as an additive in many products. But ambergris is never used alone: It is always rubbed with sugar, which acts by minutely separating the particles of the material,and then married to several other aromatics. The scents best suited to this purpose are acetic and nitric ether, oil of wintergreen, oil of lemon, oil of mace and creosote. As with truffles, ambergris has to be shaved very thinkly and added to warm drinks, so as to melt and not create a sediment.

Ambergris is a substance that the wild sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus Lin=P.catodon) regurgitates naturally; a sort of cetacean furball, clotted whale cholesterol to protect the animal's digestive track of remnants of indigested cuttlefish, squid beaks etc. [To learn all the info you need on what ambergris is and its differences with amber resin as well as its differences with Ambrox/Ambroxan refer to these herein linked articles.]

When it is fresh, ambergris has nearly no value, because its smell is extremely fecal and it has no great use for perfumery. But let it float on the ocean for some years and it gains a beautiful patina that famously chemist Gunther Ohloff described as “humid, earthy, fecal, marine, algoid, tobacco-like, sandalwood-like, sweet, animal, musky and radiant”.  It's difficult to improve on his words, but to me ambergris is that rare thing; an animalic essence that can be used even neat: its oily, marine, skin-friendly aura is intimate, but subtle, warming on the skin with an earthy, algae-reminiscent scent of bodies after a sea dip.
Whalefishers of the 18th and 19th century knew its worth. Watching "Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World", I was not surprised to come across an awe-eyed sailor dreaming of catching a whaler loot: "she'll be loaded with gold and ambergris and all the gems of Araby".

"Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honour to Alexander the Great?"

H.Melville's poetic associations in a whole chapter devoted to it in Moby Dick notwithstanding (with mentions of its use in Turkish cooking), the ocean and sun not only change the initially dark brown floating lumps into light greyish or even yellowish, but they also break down the basic building block, ambreine, into a quantity of products which account for the complex smell of ambergris. These lend themselves to complimenting a variety of ingredients in foods and beverages, as attested by the recipes aimed to help you cook with ambergris below.

You can buy some of the exceptional free-floating (i.e. ethically harvested) ambergris at profumo.it. (Currently I only see tincture available, but raw small lumps were available before, hopefully again)
Also available on Ambergris New Zealand. 


Recipe: Chocolat Ambré: chocolate drink laced with natural ambergris

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in Larousse Gastronomique: The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine and Cooking by Prosper Montagné with the collaboration of Dr. Gottschalk, 1961 English Ed.

"Chocolate is one of the most efficient restoratives.  All of those who have to work when they might be sleeping, men of wit who feel temporarily deprived of their intellectual powers, those who find the weather oppressive, time dragging, the atmosphere depressing; those who are tormented by some preoccupation which deprives them of the liberty of thought; let all such men imbibe a half-litre of chocolat ambré, using 60 to 72 grains of amber per half-kilo, and they will be amazed.  The grain, an old-fashioned measure, equals about the twentieth part of a gram, and we might add, ambre gris is meant, a greyish substance which exhales a smell analogous to musk, and not yellow amber, which is an entirely different thing.  Such chocolate no longer exists. In Méditation VI, Brillat-Savarin refers to chocolat ambré as 'the chocolate of the afflicted': 'I knew that Marshal Richelieu, of glorious memory, constantly chewed ambergris lozenges: as for myself, when I get one of those days when the weight of age makes itself felt - a painful thought - or when one feels oppressed by an unknown force, I add a knob of ambergris the size of a bean, pounded with sugar, to a strong cup of chocolate, and I always find my condition improving marvellously.  The burden of life becomes lighter, thought flows with ease and I do not suffer from insomnia, which would have been the invariable result of a cup of coffee taken for the same purpose'. Brillat-Savarin also praises the powers of ambergris in his Magistères Restaurants."
[source Ray Girvan, Technical Author,The Apothecary's Drawer.]

Recipe for Negus, a drink of Port or Sherry, sugar & spices, hot water and natural ambergris:

1 bottle of sherry (or port), 2-1/2 pints of water, juice of 1 lemon, a little of the peel rubbed off on sugar; grated nutmeg, and sugar to taste; add one drop essence of ambergris, or 10 drops of vanilla; all to be made and drunk warm.

source: Aerated Waters & How to Make Them; Together with Receipts for Non-Alcoholic Cordials & a Short Essay on Flavouringby Joseph Goold - J. Gilbert Smith, Publisher, London - 1880 - p.110

Recipe for Ambergris Wedding Punch

Take 1/2 pint of pineapple juice.
1 pint of lemon juice.
1 pint of lemon syrup.
1 pint of claret or port wine.
1/2 pound of sugar.
1/2 pint of boiling water.
6 grains of vanilla.
1 grain of ambergris.
1 pint of strong brandy.
Rub the vanilla and ambergris with the sugar in the brandy thoroughly; let it stand in a corked bottle for a few hours, shaking occasionally. Then add the lemon juice, pineapple juice and wine; filter through flannel, and lastly add the syrup.

source: The Mixicologist by C. F. Lawlor - Lawlor & Co., Publishers, Cincinnati - 1895 - p. 21

For the really adventurous or carnivores with access to good, old, rural meat, there is an English recipe for "ambergris puddings" (i.e. sausages with ambergris) from Lord Conway's Ambergris Puddings from The Queen's Closet Newly Opened (London: 1655) on this link.

And finally a scent formula, for Eau de Cologne à l'Ambergris (Ambergris Cologne Water)

21 ounces of oil of orange.
21 ounces of oil of bergamot.
2-5/8 ounces of oil of neroli.
6-9/16 ounces of oil of lavender.
3-15/16 ounces of oil of rosemary.
63 drops of oil of roses.
126 drops of oil of cloves.
200 drops of essence of ambergris.
Dissolve in 10 gallons of alcohol, 95 per cent.

Related reading on PerfumeShrine: Aromatic Cuisine: musings & recipes, Musk & Civet in Food: musk candy & civet coffee

Many thanks to Abdes Salaam of Profumo.it
Photo of Renaissance dessert with iris flower jelly and ambergris posset recreated by Bombass & Parr via Caroline's Miscellany. 
Painting of Madame de Pompadour by François-Hubert Drouais

Louis Vuitton to Launch Eponymous Fragrance

Contrary to expected (as mentioned in a fragrance industry-peeping book by Chandler Burr), the French fashion house, known by the initials LV to rock many a logo-studded handbag, has reportedly acquired the services of third-generation perfumer Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud with a view to entering the scent market, as per an article appearing on WWD.
The French brand's creative director Marc Jacobs (who has his own lucrative line of fragrances, including Daisy, Daisy Eau Fresh, Lola , the Splash collection and Bang) has long expressed a wish for the company to enter the fragrance market and in June he hinted the fashion house is "working on" a perfume. His statement was: "There's no Vuitton Beaute. At this moment, there is no fragrance although we're workingon that." [source] With talks on Marc Jacobs taking the helm at Christian Dior (another company in the LVMH Group) after John Galliano's expulsion and Phoebe Philo in talks to take over Louis Vuitton, it makes for a potentially explosive cocktail. Jacques Cavallier is expected to start working in January for LV, which has not made an official statement concerning the issue yet.

According to WWD, Louis Vuitton is thought to have been investigating "rare, almost-extinct flowers in France that could be used as elements of its scent". Apart from the standard "sourcing for precious flowers in Grasse" stint that seems to go hand and parcel with every prestigious fragrance launch (even if we know that's not necessarily the case as Grasse products come from all over the world and aromachemicals overpopulate the formulae of most commercial fragrances), it would seem that the brand might be peeping into Dior's own resources in the subject. Let's not forget that Cavallier has already worked for Dior's Addict, so he's familiar with the infrastructure.

My collaborator AlbertCAN has an interesting viewpoint on this:

"To be honest it's would be interesting how Jacques Cavallier will interpret the DNA of LV, and how he will work with Demachy. (Not clear yet on their relationships, although I bet Francois Demachy [ed.note: head perfumer at Dior] will do the check and balance.) Nor is it clear whether Cavallier's contract will be exclusive. On the other hand I don't think Cavallier will rock the boat too much with the first launch, given how much pressure he will be under. (Read: LV execs won't let him.) But given the new Bottega fragrance, might LV be tempted to up to ante?"

Albert might mean that Vuitton might also tackle a leather fragrance. It would stand to reason, wouldn't it. On the other hand issuing a fragrance somewhat creates a downgrading of a luxe brand, making a product that is more or less available to a mass of consumers as opposed to an elite. After all that was the reason they were so resistant to issuing a fragrance before. However, like Hermes so successfully proved, they might reserve distribution of this product for their own boutiques instead of department stores, thus up keeping the "exclusive" experience.

Louis Vuitton has long stood for the ambassador of the idea of luxe travelling, being famous for its historical trunks and suitcases, as reinforced by their recent exotic destinations/travellers advertisements (with Sean Connery, Bono and his wife, etc.). The funny thing is however that a specimen of Eau de Voyage by Louis Vuitton, Paris, a commemoratory fragrance version that circulated in the 1980s, has already circulated on Ebay! Could this be juice waiting to be fine-tuned by Cavallier and reintroduced in some form? Could the name, since copyrighted apparently, be reused?
American online stores, curiously, have "acquired" and as of July 2011, "sold out" a Louis Vuitton fragrance "in only 200 bottles" in signature logo-branded box, advertising it as "a very sensual, tea rose type of smell that has a floral scent combo. It's absolutely awesome. It's a very soft, intimate alluring smell that will last forever. Exotic definately!" [sic] Though, I'm kinda certain we're dealing with a Chinese fake, in this case!


Expect to read more in the coming weeks and months.

photo via 1000fragrances

Georgia the Biggest Consumer of Celebrity Fragrances?

According to an article on The Financial Channel, that might be the case, especially in Tbilisi. But what's most important is that celebrity fragrances (including ancillary products such as bath & shower gels, body lotions and body mists)

are popular with both affluent and lower-incomed customers! It's also noted that they're most popular among young people, though not exclusively.
Avril Lavigne, Naomi Campbell, Christina Aguilera and Antonio Banderas are named some of the most favourite celebrity brands for Georgians according to Khatia Shamugia, PR Manager of Ici Paris. These are often bought by mothers for their daughters (so mothers, beware what you introduce your impressionable offspring to!) or for their best friends.

“I am kind of a celebrity perfume lover,” said Nanu Abashidze, 19. “Of course I prefer to buy high class brands such as Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent but they are much more expensive. So I prefer to buy cheaper brands, and I am quite content with their smell. Avril Lavigne is one of my favourite celebrity cosmetic brands. I started using it recently and can’t give it up,” Abashidze said.
Taking this confession as a departure point into some personal speculation, it's worth wondering if the quality of high-end brands has gone down so downhill that there isn't really much to differentiate them from celebrity fragrances or lower-end products than their perceived prestige...

pic via klineblog

Perfume Courses by Alec Lawless

Alec Lawless of Essentially Me artisan perfumery will be teaching two perfumery courses: both Make Your Own Perfume Workshop and his Five-Day Artisan Perfumery Course on dates through 2012.  The courses are popular with enthusiasts from across the world:  Alec's reputation internationally is such that previous students have travelled from as far afield as Germany, Denmark and Japan to study at with him at Essentially Me's Perfumery Workshop near Stroud in the Cotswolds.   In the last two years he has also taught perfumery classes in Australia, New Zealand and New York.

Courses cater for all levels.   Make Your Own Perfume gives participants the chance spend the day at the perfumery, creating their own unique fragrance using a carefully blended selection of beautiful natural aromatics.  At just £125, it's an affordable treat or perfect gift for Christmas, Birthday or Valentine's Day.  The course runs on Saturdays, with dates for 2012 as follows: 28th January, 24th March, 19th May, 7th July, 29th September.  There are also a few places still left on the final course of 2011, to be held on 3rd December. Courses can be booked on line atwww.essentially-me.co.uk. Gift vouchers are also available.

Meanwhile, for the serious enthusiast, the Artisan Perfumery Course is a chance to spend 5 days learning to create a sophisticated perfume using some of the finest natural aromatics in the world. Students learn about the history of natural perfumery, how natural aromatics are produced and consultation techniques to create fragrances for other people; as well as hands-on blending sessions.  The course fee of £495 offers fantastic value - it includes expert tuition from Alec Lawless, use of materials, lunch and refreshments each day and the finished bottle of perfume at the end of the course.  There are three courses scheduled for 2012, as well as one remaining in 2011.   All run Wednesday - Sunday on: 9th-13th November 2011; then 7th-11th March; 20th-24th June and 21st - 25th November 2012.   Bookings may be made on line or by phone at 01453 882525.

For further information, please contact Sian James on 01453 882525 or pr@essentially-me.co.uk

info via press release

Perfume Book Review: Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez The Little Book of Perfumes/The 100 Classics

Utter the names Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez and a combination of their polarising "Guide's", irrepresible wit and -equally irrepresible- snark, all rolled into one, flash into one's mind like LED-lamps that flicker between a P anode and a N cathode throughout eternity. The reason to read their newest venture isn't quite all of the above, nevertheless: Dropping the snark for a programmatically positive outlook ~The Little Book of Perfumes is all about 5-star perfumes reviews, aka "masterpieces" according to the authors~ they're not simply fawning reviews as met with in other guides, not being short on addressing serious fragrance industry issues either. (After all, if you don't know Luca is rather fond of the smell of Napalm in the morning, you don't know anything yet.)

Although the material is largely taken from the previous Perfumes,The Guide (review here and a small practical note on all the different editions here), serving as a petite compendium or a Xmas gift to spark fun discussion over the course of wine & cheese among people who raise their eyebrows up to their  paretial bone upon hearing you possess a "fragrance collection" ("say what, more than 5???? Why????"), there is a difference: For several of those 96 reviews (more of which below) there is a small 2011 addendum, mostly by Sanchez, that chronicles the evolution that time and IFRA allergens & raw materials regulations have administered to these fragrances. And this is mainly the interest for those who already own a copy of the 2008 book: Staunchy perfume enthusiasts already know most of what's to know about reformulations and search the Net for info regularly. But those who're budding in the aficion will get a kick out of getting their sentiments that "something's not quite right in the frag they loved any more" validated.

All is not bad news, though, in those addenda mentioned, even if heads at Dior almost collectively (and a couple of the PR contigency plan at Guerlain) must be cussing right & left most probably right about now (Well, not really, for the most part the authors proclaim the work rendered "as best as could be under the circumstances"). Some fragrances have in fact upgraded, if that's possible! I specifically mention 96 perfume reviews because 4 out of the 100 are hors catégorie, being reconstructions specifically for L'Osmothèque (thus making them unavailable for purchase). A couple of them featured in the "little book" are still resolutely discontinued (Yohji pour Homme and Le Feu d'Issey for instance or more recently L'Artisan's Vanilia) but hope dies last, in the Turin & Sanchez universe (And why not, I ask you? Fougère Royale 2010 AD I'm not looking at you, don't get any ideas in your silly head!).
So what's left is 90+ reviews of things every perfume enthusiast (and not only) should note down to smell sometime.

The new material includes a foreword by Tania Sanchez (written in good pace perfumista-style and ringing very true) and an essay on the Osmothèque by Luca Turin (in his trademark eloquent polemic, mixing music metaphors and similes which caress the cerebral cortex); there are four reviews of long-lost, beautiful Osmothèque perfumes the authors tested during a presentation on perfume by the brilliant Patricia de Nicolaï, curator of the Osmothèque, at the French Embassy in Washington, DC, organized by Smithsonian Associates. "We give you L’Origan, described by me by LT’s request, and Chypre de Coty, Emeraude and Iris Gris, described by LT at my request" clarifies Tania Sanchez.
The top ten lists (exacted by all publishers worth their print salt, per Tania) have been updated and there is a new "Desert Island" top list for each respective author. I found the added resources & shopping short essay at the end rather meagre, personally (lots of other helpful resource guides are available online), though the Perfumed Court is hailed as a decanting service for when you can't get hold of something any other way and The Perfumer's Apprentice gets a nod for those eager to smell the raw materials themselves.(With which I would urge you should familiarise yourselves, if you're serious about this whole perfume thing)

To make things practical, I have noted down which fragrances are considered to have gotten BETTER/STAYED THE SAME in 2011 than the 2007 sample bottles the writing duo had received (in alphabetical order):

Calandre Paco Rabanne
Cristalle Chanel
Dior Homme
Fracas Piguet
Habit Rouge Guerlain
Jicky Guerlain
Knize Ten
Mitsouko Guerlain
Nahéma Guerlain
Poison Dior
Shalimar Guerlain

And these are the fragrances which are considered to have gotten (somewhat!) WORSE/CHANGED in 2011 than the 2007 sample bottles the writing duo had received (in alphabetical order). Please note, the fragrances below are still considered worthy of inclusion in the compendium of 5-stars:

1740 Histoires de Parfums
Amouage Gold
Après l'Ondée Guerlain
Bois des Iles Chanel
Bois de Violette Serge Lutens
Boucheron Femme
Chamade Guerlain
Cuir de Russie Chanel
Diorella Dior
Dune Dior
Eau de Guerlain
Eau Sauvage Dior
Givenchy III
L'Heure Bleue Guerlain
Iris Silver Mist Serge Lutens
Joy parfum Jean Patou
New York Patricia de Nicolai
No.5 eau de toilette Chanel
No.5 parfum Chanel
Opium Yves Saint Laurent
Pour Monsieur Chanel
Promesse de l'Aube MCDI (attributed to just a faulty batch, though)
The Third Man (Le 3eme Homme) Caron
Vol de Nuit Guerlain

You might have noticed that that makes it roughly 35 "updates" (I excluded a couple, because of simply announcing news of "discontinuation" such as Theo Fennel's Scent or due to ambivalence) and I expect that might get book buyers pondificating the issue. Yet interestingly, there are some surprising results, especially for some perfume lovers who have been disappointed in certain notable classics lately (Shalimar, Cristalle) and can now be enthused anew. But I won't elaborate further; you have to check it out for yourselves!
I will only add that I'm glad Tania added that necessary deterrent on Sécrétions Magnifiques for anyone who couldn't really fathom how such a brave (read: disgusting) scent entered the masterpieces collection, or anyone who might go ahead and spray some on their lapels before going out on a date or job interview, God forbid; "masterpiece" and "pleasant" are not mutually inclusive terms! (And if you disagree, what the hell are you doing reading Turin & Sanchez or this blog?)

The book circulates under two editions: One American by Penguin US, another British by Profile UK. They are exactly the same, as far as I know, but they feature a different cover, as shown on the photo (taken from Tania Sanchez with many thanks)
The US edition is on pre-order on this link. The UK edition is on pre-order on this link. Official date of release is October 31st 2011.