The Golden Mean
The tools and methods used in goldsmithing are many, provided it is real gold one is working with. As opposed to cheap bronze, brass, or even silver. Just as you can't get a gold coin out of brass no matter what you do to the brass, you can't get Oud Sultani out of $20 oud wood no matter how clever a distiller.
Gold secured, there are a number of things that come into play in chiseling the 'profile' of each oud oil. And here is where the real nitty-gritty of artisanal oud distillation begins. For example, the mineral content of the water you use during distillation has a spectacular effect on the oil. Distil an Indian oil in Evian drinking water and you might just end up with Oud Yusuf. We did just that. We have oils from Assam, Meghalaya, Haflong, Burma, Manipur and Bhutan which we are aging that are as floral, sumptuous and elegant as Oud Yusuf, with absolutely zero 'barn' to them.
But water is only one out of a dozen factors. The material the pot is made of plays a major role, as does the soak. What the drums you soak in are made of matters, too, as do the ducts inside the boilers. And don't forget the condenser. You might distil 100-year-old Bhutan raw materials in copper with zero soak and get a rosy Oud oil, yet if you soak them for two weeks and cook in steel the oil will smell more like champaca and tuberose.
You might soak in Evian for a week and cook in groundwater; or soak in groundwater for a month and cook in Evian. You might soak in Evian for two weeks then re-soak in groundwater for another two weeks; or soak in groundwater for a week followed by a three-week Evian soak. You might soak in plastic or in clay or in ceramic. You might cook in copper or in stainless steel or in glass. The variables are many, and the ways you can combine them virtually endless....
After producing the most unusually fruity, floral, and ethereal Assam oils I could have ever dreamt of, from the very finest raw materials possible, I had to stop and have a good sniff at my burgeoning collection of Assam ouds. Here are the Vintage LTDs of the future. Is this really the direction I would like to go with my Assams? Tuberose, champaca, orris and rose notes permeate the latest Bhutan batches, while the Burmese and Haflong oils – successors to Oud Mostafa and Oud Khidr – are permeated by a scent of clean forest, admixing characteristics of sandalwood, agarwood, cedar and other wood aromatics.
The possible tweaks which would elicit similarly unusual notes in future batches are endless. We can hypothetically distill Assam (as well as Cambodian, Thai, Bornean) oils that exhibit the most flamboyant scent profiles. – But we won't.
Here is where the unique aesthetic of the Artisan must come into the picture, take a firm grip of the reins, and direct his journey of olfactory discovery through inventiveness and creativity in the direction that he feels is right.
Just as it wouldn't seem fit for me to take a ton of Turkish rose petals and try to mimic the scent of Oud wood with them – or an incredible jasmine harvest and attempt to evoke cedarwood by manipulating the stills somehow – it would seem equally unbefitting to elicit the scent of flowers, fruits, or other edible confections out of precious oud resin which took decades to mature.
Which direction should we head then, in our Artisanal Oud journey? There is one Golden Mean which raw materials, distillation techniques, and all know-how and expertise of the Artisan can aim to attain in this craft: The scent which that same oud wood gives off when put on heated charcoal.
Any departure from this is a flunk, so far as I'm concerned. Isn't the smoke of burning oud chips the epitome of oud – Kyara and sinking-grade wood being the most sought after types of agarwood? What good is Kyara if it gives off the scent of watermelons?... or honeydew, or apricots, or mangos? It is its status as the epitome of burning oud wood that makes Kyara the most coveted incense in the world. Which is why oud oils that capture its unearthly scent command the highest prices.
The same applies to Assam Oud....