Sandalwood E.O Indian Legends – Part Four

Adam Michael has this to say “Indian legends series was meant to be a trilogy for the year 2025 only. Then I sampled this Mysore Sandalwood from a private collection and instantly knew the Indian Legends series was now becoming a quartet!

Most will tell you the best sandalwood (S.album) hails from Mysore India. I feel this has a truth if we are talking about the Mysore productions of old albeit what is best is ultimately a personal choice. However todays sandalwoods from India  – are nearly all plantation, from trees as young as just 20 to 30 years old, and are anything else but gold standard sandalwoods today.  Example our Papuan King from Indonesia exudes a superior profile  – far more buttery with a beautiful top, compared to all of these Mysore Sandalwoods sourced from a handful of French corporates and of which are peddled by our competition as something special.

Put that up against a bonified almost centurion old Mysore like this though and it is a different matter.

What I have here is 14 year aged steam distilled Mysore Sandalwood e.o, produced in 2012 from trees estimated at 85 years of age based on growing location. And the santalols content exceeds todays standards. Todays range for the anorexic super uniformed dime a dozen sandalwoods from India would be 41% to 55% for a.santalol and 16% to 24% for b.santalol. Legends part 4, from trees that had over 80 years to develop personality and of which would have started life in the 1930’s contains nearly 86% of these two prized santalols alone. And that’s fact as we have had this batch GC/MS tested at the University of Messina for anyone wanting to produce IFRA and Fragrance Allergens documentation. Not something offered in this instance as we only have a small limited weight in our possession for sale thus no wholesale options are possible. To give this context, depending on who you talk to 90% santalols is the absolute holy grail, top of the top in the world of connoisseurs Mysore sandalwood.

*At the same time I must add I have personally traded many many sandalwoods of s.album nomenclature both on and off my website in the range of 70% santaols that smelled mind blowing – and few of those batches were ever Indian, but chiefly Indonesian and cost a fraction of the price compared to fancy pant sandalwoods like Legends Part 4. Written because my own personal view is there is more to the sandalwood profile than how big that santalols percentage becomes of the whole.

Indian Legends part 4 needs two full days on the strip alone to fully showcase its profile, yes two days and is present on strip for weeks, yes plural. This is sandalwood with a lot of meat on the bone so to speak and an aromatic with real evolution. The initial opening is one hundred percent masculine, very fresh, woody, antique woody furniture with warming earth tonalities and finished with an almost trace green through to lightly spiced sweet buttery floral entwined hue.

This profile stays in place for the first 10 to 12 hours with that fleeting sweet buttery Mysore sandalwood quality slowly developing before it really takes over and saturates the environment for the next 30 plus hours on strip and of which is underpinned with pine nut, walnut and an animalic woodiness that has both muskrat tincture and aged atlas cedarwood nuances about it.

When we finally see the dry down in the horizon, it is in a sweet milky through to buttery woody form. Beautiful sandalwood, aromatic art at its finest. Uses, this is really a collectors piece beyond anything else. However for those wanting to utilise this within perfumery, sandalwood is the best friend of many aromatics, of great fixative value that blends wonderfully well generally with floral, woody, rooty and resin derived aromatics.”

Botanical Name: Santalum album

Origin: India/Mysore

Alcohol Soluble: Yes

Oil Soluble: Yes