Oud Biz: Real Talk

A

Alkhadra

Guest
#62
Ok guys I am done with this forum. Some good people on here but unfortunately my enjoyment of discussing oud on this forum has evaporated.
It was good to know you guys. Made some good friends here.
There is always a high tide and a low tide, this is only temporary brother. Things settle down. I could never understand how a few bad posts could spoil someones Oud for them. Nothing could spoil my Oud. Absolutely nothing.

I hope nothing spoils yours either brother.
 

Shabby

Well-Known Member
#63
What you said:

IMG_0994.PNG

My paraphrasing: ‘I have proof I can go the grave with that ‘x’ Cambodi oil was made from $25/kg wood’.

Where is the agenda Sidi? Except in one who pretends he didn’t say something which he evidently did.

You paraphrase wrongly in order to suit your agenda. What I said was, I would never give an assessment that an oil is made from low-grade wood without personally having witnessed either the distillation site, or met the broker where the materials were purchased, was shown similar materials, and have olfactory evidence in the smell of the oil as being from such materials. What concerns you is my assessment. Where I got my proof, what that proof is, etc is my problem. And it is a very big problem if that proof is not substantial because we take all of these things to the grave with us, and shall be asked about them. My assessment of the oil you showed me remains the same as I told you at the London OudFest. I don't owe anybody proof, or evidence, or whatever else you may be dreaming about. If Taha had any objections to make, they would have been voiced by now. That is the best I can do. And that is for Taha's sake. Not
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#66
That is between you and your Lord. Your actions are clear in any case. Salaam and dua Sidi. May God bless you and those who work with you.
It sure is, Sidi, and they sure are............
May God bless you for your noble intention to resolve a controversy and right a perceived wrong. You are in my duas. Salaam.
 

Rasoul S

Well-Known Member
#68
hello oud lovers.

i wana open a can of worms. i thought hard and much about it, but i believe some false theories we are holding onto tightly is only acting as a disservice to us. time to debunk them.

a year or so ago, when i first started geeking out on oud and going beyond the scent and more into the wood, distillation techniques, etc. my belief was the better oils came from higher grade wood. By grade here i mean traditional grading of wood for heating purposes. My belief was entry level oils where made from bunk wood (white) and lue (the immediate surrounding area of point of infection), mid level oils made from incense grade, and super and as the prices went up so did the amount of seah (hard resinous wood with more resin than oil) and of course the top dogs made from sinking grade, king, baby king, etc.

of course, some rare examples would exist when an oil was made from a kyen grade wood (more oil than resin content), but the general rule of thumb was my belief that top dog oils are all from sick looking dark, resinous wood. this by the way, is utterly false.

sure there are examples of oils made from entirely incense grade or better wood. or even entirely sinking grade, but these are exceptions. i am more interested in the general realm. i know this not only because of the year or more of learning, reading, researching but simply due to the mathematics of it. knowing the price of wood in the market, even wholesale, and even if procured a while back, even with highish 20 gram/kilo yield, and the price that they go for, the number still don't add up. they fall way short in fact.

I now have a different outlook. i understand most distillers make oil from lue and white bunk wood around it. or what they call oil grade. maybe small inclusion of incense grade or just below it. higher resin wood yields less oil and the wood is so high in demand for carving, for being sold for burning, incense, etc. that no one except a fun small side project or in their right head would distill such grade wood. now some like taha say that they have found a way to distill the oil trapped as resin in such wood. others say that's not possible unless a chemical wash is done or the oil is first captured via extract, then distilled. it would be nice to get some clarity on this matter too. @Kruger @Ensar @abdullah @Alkhadra @Taha

@Kruger and @Ensar can you touch on oud ahmad for example. the yield ratio. how were you able to get the most out of that wood and justify distilling a grade of wood that it makes no sense, IF none of the oil trapped as resin was able to come out and end up in the final product. of course i am not trying to pry and ask you to give away any trade secrets or proprietory info.

back to the main topic:
i feel this false rhetoric and story has stuck with most of us, b/c it is an easy straightforward way of understanding things (us humans like to categorize, compartmentalize the life around us to make sense of it) and some vendors fell into the trap of re-circulating the same story to justify their prices. we have this in the tea world, coffee world, wine world, beer world... why is wine X so much more expensive that wine Y from same vicinity, same grape. some use the older the plant the better quality the grape story. which has some truth but also plenty of false in it. some use the story of my tonnage was 1 tons per acre vs others 3 tons an acre. so i sacrificed 2 tons to get my 1 ton to ripen to mythical levels. this is also not a true story and so much more goes in to it. in a certain difficult cool year, it may hold true but in a hot year, a very low crop will backfire and end up with highly out of balance grapes that turn into shit wine... lets debunk this garbage "shit that sells" story and get to the truth. this means don't email your supplier asking for ONLY their sinking grade stock. sinkers dont equate to better-smelling, more complex wood. i have seen this one too many times. this also means not chastising a vendor that comes out and prices an oil high but dares to say is made from incense grade or below level wood. proof is in the pudding. is a two-way relationship. we gotta correct our narrative and distillers will follow. at the end of the day is business and they have expenses and have families to feed and like us they want to have a comfortable and enjoyable life too. lets get real.


lets face it if mr x sold us an oil for $750 and said is made from young infection or mostly lue and tiny bit of kyen/seah, vs. if we were told is made from half sinking material, incense and super category, we would gobble up the latter sotry and stay far away from the first story. is the same damn oil. but the story behind it makes us react differently. This doesn't take anything away from a distiller that can turn out an insanely layered and awesome oil via technique and what not from simple wood. it doesn't make me see he or she oils as any less. Only those that were holding tightly to a false belief that a $800 oil MUST be made from sick looking and awesome wood are kicking and screaming b/c their world is collapsed and they don't like to face the truth. Any more distillers can say about this would be appreciated.

end of rant. hopefully this post will result in civil and menaingful dialogue and we can all learn somethign from it. here is to creating a safe and calm online envirnment to discuss things like this.
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#69
a year or so ago, when i first started geeking out on oud and going beyond the scent and more into the wood, distillation techniques, etc. my belief was the better oils came from higher grade wood. By grade here i mean traditional grading of wood for heating purposes. My belief was entry level oils where made from bunk wood (white) and lue (the immediate surrounding area of point of infection), mid-level oils made from incense grade, and super and as the prices went up so did the amount of seah (hard resinous wood with more resin than oil) and of course the top dogs made from sinking grade, king, baby king, etc.

of course, some rare examples would exist when an oil was made from a kyen grade wood (more oil than resin content), but the general rule of thumb was my belief that top dog oils are all from sick looking dark, resinous wood. this by the way, is utterly false.
NO oils are made from super king grade wood. Let's get that out of the way right now. I've smelled oils that I was told were made from sinking-grade wood, and I know my oud well enough to be certain my colleagues who handed me these oils were not lying to me. Even so, I am personally convinced these oils were made from the shavings surrounding king super wood rather than solid slabs of the wood itself. One such oil is Oud Ahmad, which you ask about.

sure there are examples of oils made from entirely incense grade or better wood. or even entirely sinking grade, but these are exceptions. i am more interested in the general realm. i know this not only because of the year or more of learning, reading, researching but simply due to the mathematics of it. knowing the price of wood in the market, even wholesale, and even if procured a while back, even with highish 20 gram/kilo yield, and the price that they go for, the number still don't add up. they fall way short in fact.
When I say an oil is "incense-grade" I mean it is distilled from wood which, if ground up and molded into an incense stick, would give you an aroma that's markedly distinct from that of firewood. The overwhelming majority of oils I produce are made from such wood.

The lue and oil-grade distillations you refer to were done at one point in Thailand to keep artisanal oud within reach of most people. However, I stopped producing the organics that would retail at $165 and similar price points a few years ago, and most Ensar Oud oils produced today are done from wood my own teacher would be proud to compound and make incense sticks out of.

I now have a different outlook. I understand most distillers make oil from lue and white bunk wood around it. or what they call oil grade. maybe small inclusion of incense grade or just below it. higher resin wood yields less oil and the wood is so high in demand for carving, for being sold for burning, incense, etc. that no one except a fun small side project or in their right head would distill such grade wood.
You are 100% right. Most distillers make oil out of lue and very low-grade wood; tweaks, tricks and acrobatics are what keep the oils interesting. Not me. I've spent the cheap and the expensive sourcing true incense and superior grade wood.

The days of lue are long gone, along with Saumanasa and organic oud distillation. I'm doing some small experimental runs from wild oil-grade wood, to be perfectly transparent, and these are oils you will see selling for under $300, maybe even under $200, on my website. Or maybe you will not see them at all; time will tell.

You are right in assuming such oils make up the bulk of the oil market, though, and that such oils can and do sell for $750+ per bottle.

now some like taha say that they have found a way to distill the oil trapped as resin in such wood. others say that's not possible unless a chemical wash is done or the oil is first captured via extract, then distilled. it would be nice to get some clarity on this matter too.
It is not impossible to untrap oil hardened as oleoresin inside the wood if you know how to distill it. Oils distilled from such wood smell distinctly more resinous than those extracted from the common feedstock of "lue and white bunk wood around it" which you correctly assessed to be the staple materials for agarwood oil extraction, even in the so-called 'artisanal' market. Seldom do you come across a true incense-grade oil.

@Kruger and @Ensar can you touch on oud ahmad for example. the yield ratio. how were you able to get the most out of that wood and justify distilling a grade of wood that it makes no sense, IF none of the oil trapped as resin was able to come out and end up in the final product. of course i am not trying to pry and ask you to give away any trade secrets or proprietary info.
Oud Ahmad was distilled in 2001, three years before I got into agarwood. I 'inherited' it from my venerable colleague who used to supply the UAE royal family. It is not my own distillation. Keep in mind, sinking-grade wood & shavings were plentiful and very common back in the early 2000's. Borneo 3000 was distilled in 2004 from such materials. So my colleague's claim that Ouds Ahmad and Salahuddin were distilled from sinking-grade wood in 2001 is entirely credible, especially given the matching olfactory profiles of these oils.

Back to the main topic: I feel this false rhetoric and story has stuck with most of us, b/c it is an easy straightforward way of understanding things (us humans like to categorize, compartmentalize the life around us to make sense of it) and some vendors fell into the trap of re-circulating the same story to justify their prices.... lets face it, if mr x sold us an oil for $750 and said is made from young infection or mostly lue and tiny bit of kyen/seah, vs. if we were told is made from half sinking material, incense and super category, we would gobble up the latter sotry and stay far away from the first story. is the same damn oil. but the story behind it makes us react differently. This doesn't take anything away from a distiller that can turn out an insanely layered and awesome oil via technique and what not from simple wood. it doesn't make me see he or she oils as any less. Only those that were holding tightly to a false belief that a $800 oil MUST be made from sick looking and awesome wood are kicking and screaming b/c their world is collapsed and they don't like to face the truth. Any more distillers can say about this would be appreciated.
I said something along those lines before, and it resulted in all-out war on this forum with several members either being banned or leaving as a result. It is not a question of wood grade. The minute you question a distiller's story you're questioning their integrity.

Take it from me, it's not about the consumer wanting to hear the crazy story. Whether most distillers cook lue or white wood or not, someone out there IS going to cook incense-grade wood. In light of such products being a reality in this market, no one is going to say "Alright, let's forget this incense wood story thing and get real. WE DISTILL WHITE WOOD AND LUE."

People are greedy by nature. And they're copycats. We like to do what others are doing. Conformity equates to safety in the psyche. People don't like to be unique. Uniqueness equates to aloneness and being the odd one out in people's minds, and they don't like to see themselves as the odd one out.

I bet you if someone took your advice and said it like it is, without hyping the stuff they sell, they'd find great success. Simply because of the originality of the approach. It'd be so interesting to see, people would doubt their sincerity the other way around, i.e. "You don't really distill white wood and lue, you're just pulling our legs! We know you distill better stuff than you claim, only we appreciate your humbleness and your integrity, so we will keep supporting you anyway!"
 
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Rasoul S

Well-Known Member
#70
NO oils are made from super king grade wood. Let's get that out of the way right now. I've smelled oils that I was told were made from sinking-grade wood, and I know my oud well enough to be certain my colleagues who handed me these oils were not lying to me. Even so, I am personally convinced these oils were made from the shavings surrounding king super wood rather than solid slabs of the wood itself. One such oil is Oud Ahmad, which you ask about.


When I say an oil is "incense-grade" I mean it is distilled from wood which, if ground up and molded into an incense stick, would give you an aroma that's markedly distinct from that of firewood. The overwhelming majority of oils I produce are made from such wood.

The lue and oil-grade distillations you refer to were done at one point in Thailand to keep artisanal oud within reach of most people. However, I stopped producing the organics that would retail at $165 and similar price points a few years ago, and most Ensar Oud oils produced today are done from wood my own teacher would be proud to compound and make incense sticks out of.


You are 100% right. Most distillers make oil out of lue and very low-grade wood; tweaks, tricks and acrobatics are what keep the oils interesting. Not me. I've spent the cheap and the expensive sourcing true incense and superior grade wood.

The days of lue are long gone, along with Saumanasa and organic oud distillation. I'm doing some small experimental runs from wild oil-grade wood, to be perfectly transparent, and these are oils you will see selling for under $300, maybe even under $200, on my website. Or maybe you will not see them at all; time will tell.

You are right in assuming such oils make up the bulk of the oil market, though, and that such oils can and do sell for $750+ per bottle.


It is not impossible to untrap oil hardened as oleoresin inside the wood if you know how to distill it. Oils distilled from such wood smell distinctly more resinous than those extracted from the common feedstock of "lue and white bunk wood around it" which you correctly assessed to be the staple materials for agarwood oil extraction, even in the so-called 'artisanal' market. Seldom do you come across a true incense-grade oil.


Oud Ahmad was distilled in 2001, three years before I got into agarwood. I 'inherited' it from my venerable colleague who used to supply the UAE royal family. It is not my own distillation. Keep in mind, sinking-grade wood & shavings were plentiful and very common back in the early 2000's. Borneo 3000 was distilled in 2004 from such materials. So my colleague's claim that Ouds Ahmad and Salahuddin were distilled from sinking-grade wood in 2001 is entirely credible, especially given the matching olfactory profiles of these oils.


I said something along those lines before, and it resulted in all-out war on this forum with several members either being banned or leaving as a result. It is not a question of wood grade. The minute you question a distiller's story you're questioning their integrity.

Take it from me, it's not about the consumer wanting to hear the crazy story. Whether most distillers cook lue or white wood or not, someone out there IS going to cook incense-grade wood. In light of such products being a reality in this market, no one is going to say "Alright, let's forget this incense wood story thing and get real. WE DISTILL WHITE WOOD AND LUE."

People are greedy by nature. And they're copycats. We like to do what others are doing. Conformity equates to safety in the psyche. People don't like to be unique. Uniqueness equates to aloneness and being the odd one out in people's minds, and they don't like to see themselves as the odd one out.

I bet you if someone took your advice and said it like it is, without hyping the stuff they sell, they'd find great success. Simply because of the originality of the approach. It'd be so interesting to see, people would doubt their sincerity the other way around, i.e. "You don't really distill white wood and lue, you're just pulling our legs! We know you distill better stuff than you claim, only we appreciate your humbleness and your integrity, so we will keep supporting you anyway!"
lots to read and re-read and think about here. let me be with these thoughts and ill be back with follow ups. in meantime ty for taking the time and for a candid straight up reply.
 
#71
Wow. That’s a lot of information to process. The way the descriptions are worded, I literally thought that when the descriptions mentioned an oil being distilled from sinking grade wood or incense grade, the actual chunks were being used (ground up, then distilled). I was under the impression that incense/sinking grade distillation meant distilling whole chips like Port Moresby Privee and not the shavings surrounding it. It doesn’t change anything in terms of scent...it’s either a good scent or it isn’t, regardless of materials used. It does however create confusion if the buyer is under the impression that chunks are being used for the oil only to find out that shavings were used. In that case (chunks being used), the cost of some of the oils makes sense. Do those shavings command the same price as the actual wood chunks? Taking Oud Ahmad as an example (and because it’s a future purchase for me), the description mentions that a kg of that quality of wood would be $30-$50k in today’s market. Is that $30-$50K worth of shavings per Kg or the chunks which will later be processed? Is the customer paying for the cost of the wood chunks ($30-$50K as an example) and only getting a distillation made from the shavings? I would think that shavings would command less money that an actual solid chunk and since those solid pieces are sold as incense, the rate of the shavings should be considerably less. The use of shavings in the oud oil world might be the standard, common practice, but the descriptions lead one to believe that solid pieces are being used for distillation...
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#72
Wow. That’s a lot of information to process. The way the descriptions are worded, I literally thought that when the descriptions mentioned an oil being distilled from sinking grade wood or incense grade, the actual chunks were being used (ground up, then distilled). I was under the impression that incense/sinking grade distillation meant distilling whole chips like Port Moresby Privee and not the shavings surrounding it. It doesn’t change anything in terms of scent...it’s either a good scent or it isn’t, regardless of materials used. It does however create confusion if the buyer is under the impression that chunks are being used for the oil only to find out that shavings were used. In that case (chunks being used), the cost of some of the oils makes sense. Do those shavings command the same price as the actual wood chunks? Taking Oud Ahmad as an example (and because it’s a future purchase for me), the description mentions that a kg of that quality of wood would be $30-$50k in today’s market. Is that $30-$50K worth of shavings per Kg or the chunks which will later be processed? Is the customer paying for the cost of the wood chunks ($30-$50K as an example) and only getting a distillation made from the shavings? I would think that shavings would command less money that an actual solid chunk and since those solid pieces are sold as incense, the rate of the shavings should be considerably less. The use of shavings in the oud oil world might be the standard, common practice, but the descriptions lead one to believe that solid pieces are being used for distillation...
At the end of the day, you’re talking about molecules changing shape from wood into oil. Whether they’re solid chunks to start off with or grains of rice, they’re invariably ground up into fine dust and then converted into a liquid. To start off with chunks instead of chiselled granules would only add a few zeros to the price of the oil and not have any noticeable impact on the profile. How do I know? Check out the videos of Kyara LTD: Centennial and Khao Yai Experiment (and if you can, track down the oils). Also, Mission: Kambodi Kinam. And others.

You can contextualize it another way. Say I told you an oil was a pure kinam distillation. Then you found out it was shavings instead of solid chunks. Would it be any less kinam than if it were chunks? (Kinam shavings go for $500,000 a kilogram today.)
 
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#73
At the end of the day, you’re talking about molecules changing shape from wood into oil. Whether they’re solid chunks to start off with or grains of rice, they’re invariably ground up into fine dust and then converted into a liquid. To start off with chunks instead of chiselled granules would only add a few zeros to the price of the oil and not have any noticeable impact on the profile. How do I know? Check out the videos of Kyara LTD: Centennial and Khao Yai Experiment (and if you can, track down the oils). Also, Mission: Kambodi Kinam. And others.

You can contextualize it another way. Say I told you an oil was a pure kinam distillation. Then you found out it was shavings instead of solid chunks. Would it be any less kinam than if it were chunks? (Kinam shavings go for $500,000 a kilogram today.)
So is there no difference between shavings and the actual incense piece? I thought that the point of shaving off wood is to get rid of the non-infected parts as much as possible to get to the solid part. Would there be a difference in profile if an oil was distilled from wood dust that had more resin/oil than shaving dust that had a higher percentage of white wood?

I wouldn’t think anything of a pure Kinam distillation if it was just that. However, if it was sold as distilled from sinking pieces, then in my mind, I would picture chunks of kinam being ground up and distilled as opposed to shavings which might have a high percentage of white wood in the mix.
 

Rasoul S

Well-Known Member
#74
@sg1011 if I may, i think the confusion in your post is the shavings ensar is referring to is once the bunk wood is shaved off to make statues or spun beads there is still “waste” and that’s what the distillers use for oil. Not the original shaving and chiseling to extract agarwood out of surrounding white wood. So this latter stage of shavings are no different really than the solid pieces.
 
#75
@sg1011 if I may, i think the confusion in your post is the shavings ensar is referring to is once the bunk wood is shaved off to make statues or spun beads there is still “waste” and that’s what the distillers use for oil. Not the original shaving and chiseling to extract agarwood out of surrounding white wood. So this latter stage of shavings are no different really than the solid pieces.
I think that it’s the way that it’s being worded. ‘Shavings surrounding king super wood’ sounds like shavings that have a combination of both types of wood. The way that you presented it makes more sense. I can totally see how waste shavings from a solid piece of king super wood being turned into beads for example, would be considered to be of the same quality. That being said, I’m still perplexed with all this because I was under the impression that chunks or incense pieces were being used. The Oud world is very mysterious with a lot of open ended information...this doesn’t help, that’s for sure.
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#76
So is there no difference between shavings and the actual incense piece? I thought that the point of shaving off wood is to get rid of the non-infected parts as much as possible to get to the solid part. Would there be a difference in profile if an oil was distilled from wood dust that had more resin/oil than shaving dust that had a higher percentage of white wood?

I wouldn’t think anything of a pure Kinam distillation if it was just that. However, if it was sold as distilled from sinking pieces, then in my mind, I would picture chunks of kinam being ground up and distilled as opposed to shavings which might have a high percentage of white wood in the mix.
The laws of physics apply to shavings just as they do to twigs, chunks, logs, entire trunks. If we say ‘sinking grade’ we mean the wood was of the same grade as the sinking chunks it was separated from, from an olfactory standpoint. There are shavings and then there are shavings. You can buy shavings for as little as $25, or as much as $500,000. They’re as varied in hues, weight, and olfactory properties as the ‘chunks’ they come from. Ultimately, when distilling from chunks, you need to chop them down into pieces small enough to grind into dust. Shavings also get ground up into dust. Both end up in liquid form....

I attribute the confusion about this point to the deceptive marketing of showing a sackful of dust with one single ‘chunk’ next to a thumbs up gesture as the feedstock going into a distillation. And the solitary ‘chunks’ that are pictured next to a bottle being offered for sale, leading you to think that this same chunk is what the oil was made from. In both cases, the consumer is duped into buying a falsehood. In neither case is the oil made from the grade of wood pictured, and you are at the end of the day purchasing a ‘story’, to use an accepted euphemism.

The mind acts in funny ways. We think of oil coming out of ‘chunks’ the way we do of butter coming from milk. We picture one chunk and the oil it may contain, and how that oil is showcased neatly in a small bottle made up of drops.... Marketers understand this, which is why they show you one single chip at a time. Or one or two pieces of wood at the mouth of a sack (presumably full of the same kind of wood).

Reality is very different. In the real world, oil is distilled from hundreds of kilograms of material. From chunks to chips to shavings to whatever the jungle bequeaths upon us on any given day. You’d need to picture millions of chunks turning into oil in order to have a truer and more correct understanding of where your bottle came from.

Take 90 kg as an average. Multiply by the thousands of dollars per kilogram that incense grade ‘chunks’ go for. Then divide by an average yield of 4-5 grams per kg. (20 gr/kg is another one for the comic books, btw.) Aren’t you shocked at the chivalry of oud distillers as a breed of people? Stuff they tell you literally cost them $7,500 a bottle to make is being sold for $2,500!

I will echo Rasoul here and say, for the love of God, cut it out, guys.

For a true to life visual demonstration of what the distillation process looks like, please refer to my Suriranka video:

 
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#77
The laws of physics apply to shavings just as they do to twigs, chunks, logs, entire trunks. If we say ‘sinking grade’ we mean the wood was of the same grade as the sinking chunks it was separated from, from an olfactory standpoint. There are shavings and then there are shavings. You can buy shavings for as little as $25, or as much as $500,000. They’re as varied in hues, weight, and olfactory properties as the ‘chunks’ they come from. Ultimately, when distilling from chunks, you need to chop them down into pieces small enough to grind into dust. Shavings also get ground up into dust. Both end up in liquid form....

I attribute the confusion about this point to the deceptive marketing of showing a sackful of dust with one single ‘chunk’ next to a thumbs up gesture as the feedstock going into a distillation. And the solitary ‘chunks’ that are pictured next to a bottle being offered for sale, leading you to think that this same chunk is what the oil was made from. In both cases, the consumer is duped into buying a falsehood. In neither case is the oil made from the grade of wood pictured, and you are at the end of the day purchasing a ‘story’, to use an accepted euphemism.

The mind acts in funny ways. We think of oil coming out of ‘chunks’ the way we do of butter coming from milk. We picture one chunk and the oil it may contain, and how that oil is showcased neatly in a small bottle made up of drops.... Marketers understand this, which is why they show you one single chip at a time. Or one or two pieces of wood at the mouth of a sack (presumably full of the same kind of wood).

Reality is very different. In the real world, oil is distilled from hundreds of kilograms of material. From chunks to chips to shavings to whatever the jungle bequeaths upon us on any given day. You’d need to picture millions of chunks turning into oil in order to have a truer and more correct understanding of where your bottle came from.

Take 90 kg as an average. Multiply by the thousands of dollars per kilogram that incense grade ‘chunks’ go for. Then divide by an average yield of 4-5 grams per kg. (20 gr/kg is another one for the comic books, btw.) Aren’t you shocked at the chivalry of oud distillers as a breed of people? Stuff they tell you literally cost them $7,500 a bottle to make is being sold for $2,500!

I will echo Rasoul here and say, for the love of God, cut it out, guys.

For a true to life visual demonstration of what the distillation process looks like, please refer to my Suriranka video:

What’s are we supposed to be cutting out though? I almost never get involved in these discussions because I don’t know jack about the ins and outs of the Oud business. I don’t have an opinion, one way or the other. My question about shavings were genuine as I literally thought that the chunks that are normally presented when selling an oil is what I thought was being grinded and distilled. At the end of the day, none of this matters as the scent of the oil will drive whether an oil is worth its asking price or not (for me, others might have other criteria that need to be met). I’ll drop it at this point, but I’ll keep all this in the back of my mind and take any picture or description with a grain of salt. I think back to the original picture for Kinam Rouge with those awesome looking incense chips in that glass jar. I guess that was just marketing...it worked though! As my boss once told me, I’m a marketers dream...initially.
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#78
What’s are we supposed to be cutting out though? I almost never get involved in these discussions because I don’t know jack about the ins and outs of the Oud business. I don’t have an opinion, one way or the other. My question about shavings were genuine as I literally thought that the chunks that are normally presented when selling an oil is what I thought was being grinded and distilled. At the end of the day, none of this matters as the scent of the oil will drive whether an oil is worth its asking price or not (for me, others might have other criteria that need to be met). I’ll drop it at this point, but I’ll keep all this in the back of my mind and take any picture or description with a grain of salt. I think back to the original picture for Kinam Rouge with those awesome looking incense chips in that glass jar. I guess that was just marketing...it worked though! As my boss once told me, I’m a marketers dream...initially.
@sg1011, I wasn't addressing you when I said to 'cut it out' but rather the guys who show you one or two chips and tell you an oil cost more to make than they're selling it for. I didn't mean for you to 'drop this subject' but rather for them to drop this way of marketing.

By all means, keep discussing this! I have nothing to hide, as I am sure you can deduce from all of the above posts. The truth will set us all free, brother. Let's keep talking about this subject until both you and I have an even better understanding of Oud distillation than we do now.

Regarding Oud Ahmad... I'd like to think your decision was made after sampling the oil and liking the experience it offered as compared to other oils currently available. If you smell it and like what you smell, isn't that the point of owning an oil? Why would the information that it was made from shavings as opposed to 'chunks' change your perception of the SMELL? – Yes, the shavings of $50,000 wood are a rare luxury for a distiller. And Qaboos himself wouldn’t distill $50,000 chunks unless.... he could sell a bottle for $50,000! ;)

As for Kinam Rouge, we sent some of the actual chips the oil was distilled from along with each bottle that was sold during the original launch, and for much of the first year it was on sale. The oil was indeed made from incense-grade chips – not shavings! And yes... Oud Ahmad is a higher grade oil, despite having been made from shavings. :)
 
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#79
@Ensar
This post might be the best and most straightforward thing you've written in ages.
Thank you! ‍:bow:

It is not impossible to untrap oil hardened as oleoresin inside the wood if you know how to distill it.
I think this point needs clarifying.
Do you mean untrap oil that is within highly resinated oleoresin? i.e the resin formation is obstructing oil mobility, and technique facilitates higher mobility and yield?

Or are you actually suggesting distilling oil from resin? i.e. reforming oil from resin?
I'd disagree with the second suggestion.

Seldom do you come across a true incense-grade oil.
My own answer to that is one word:
Ketsani
 

Rasoul S

Well-Known Member
#80
@sg1011, I wasn't addressing you when I said to 'cut it out' but rather the guys who show you one or two chips and tell you an oil cost more to make than they're selling it for. I didn't mean for you to 'drop this subject' but rather for them to drop this way of marketing.

By all means, keep discussing this! I have nothing to hide, as I am sure you can deduce from all of the above posts. The truth will set us all free, brother. Let's keep talking about this subject until both you and I have an even better understanding of Oud distillation than we do now.

Regarding Oud Ahmad... I'd like to think your decision was made after sampling the oil and liking the experience it offered as compared to other oils currently available. If you smell it and like what you smell, isn't that the point of owning an oil? Why would the information that it was made from shavings as opposed to 'chunks' change your perception of the SMELL? – Yes, the shavings of $50,000 wood are a rare luxury for a distiller. And Qaboos himself wouldn’t distill $50,000 chunks unless.... he could sell a bottle for $50,000! ;)

As for Kinam Rouge, we sent some of the actual chips the oil was distilled from along with each bottle that was sold during the original launch, and for much of the first year it was on sale. The oil was indeed made from incense-grade chips – not shavings! And yes... Oud Ahmad is a higher grade oil, despite having been made from shavings. :)
I have one of those Kinam Rouge chips and can confirm the scent of the wood and oil are highly relatable. I have no reason to doubt otherwise. Good resination but good amount of oil on the wood too. The resin was t running too deep or thick. As such I deduce that is why it was distilled. And resulting oil? One of my faves. Absolute faves for its complexity is unreal. An oil with many personalities. Each time I approach it I wonder who is coming to greet me today. Mustapha 7 does this too. Chugoku for me as well. Other oils from other distillers too but maybe not as often