There are many things which indicate the Holidays have arrived. One of them is the release of the new Holiday perfume by DSH Perfumes. Since 2000 independent perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz has created a new perfume for the Season. What I always look forward to is she does not make a perfume of fir trees and woodsmoke. She fixes on another part of the Holiday milieu and uses it as the focal point. For the 2018 version it is a gourmand-y version of whiskey, tobacco, and brown sugar called Uptown Moonshine.
Once things begin to wind down after a hectic day of events, during this time of year, I find just sitting still with some appropriate music and a glass of my favorite whiskey to be ideal. The best whiskeys have a perfume all their own. Capturing the wood of the barrel they aged in along with the inherent earthy sweetness of the liquid itself. As I decompress the smell of the whiskey is as important as the inner warmth it provides.
Dawn Spencer Hurwitz
I’ve never smoked but the smell of tobacco has been a favorite. I especially enjoy the scent of the dried and cured leaf as it hangs in a drying barn. When you encounter it like that you get a rich narcotic sweet scent along with a harmonic of menthol-like cool.
Ms. Hurwitz uses both as the nucleus of Uptown Moonshine which through the early going is enjoyable enough, but things really take a turn for the amazing when brown sugar gets involved creating a gourmand version of illicit delights.
Uptown Moonshine opens with the whiskey out in front. Ms. Hurwitz uses a trio of woods, oak, sandalwood, and cabreuva to form the barrel. The tobacco arrives next trailing a few florals in its wake. As it takes its place next to the whiskey it forms a rich decadent effect that I wouldn’t have thought could become even more so. Then it happens as a brown sugar accord inserts itself. This finds the spaces in between the whiskey and tobacco at first. Over time it begins to take on prominence turning it into an eccentric style of gourmand as the brown sugar takes the lead. The final bit is some peru balsam to smooth everything out into a compelling peculiar confection.
Uptown Moonshine has 8-10 hour longevity and average sillage.
If you’ve been looking for an unorthodox gourmand perfume in your Holiday stocking, Uptown Moonshine is it.
Disclosure: this review is based on a sample provided by DSH Perfumes.
–Mark Behnke
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