The gin cocktail
Anyone can make something that's nice. I want a fragrance to make you feel something.
Version log — newest first
Every iteration lands here as I move it forward. Some progress fast. Some sit on the bench for months. Some never make it out at all.
The Gin Cocktail Accord.
I really want to love this project.
It has all the right feelings and it feels so close. But every finished concept leaves me a little flat.
I shared it with Jaime today. She's a huge fan of my fragrances and she just gets what I'm trying to do. I sprayed this concept for her and her first reaction was exactly the same as mine.
"It's nice."
Nice.
I don't want to make nice fragrances. Anyone can make something that's nice. I want a fragrance to make you feel something. More importantly, I want it to transform.
Later in the day Jaime came back to me and said the dry down was really growing on her. So I went back and smelled it again.
She was right.
There is definitely something there.
The dry down becomes beautifully botanical. The ginger and armoise really start to come alive and it develops far more character than the opening ever promised.
But I still don't love it.
And that's the problem.
I want this one to be redeemable because the idea itself is exciting. A frozen gin cocktail. It should make my imagination run wild. Instead it just… doesn't. It isn't getting my creative juices flowing.
The frustrating part is that if I released this tomorrow, it would probably sell really well. Commercially, the fragrance is already there.
But that's never been my goal.
It has to be more than commercially good.
It has to make me fall in love with it first.
Right now, I don't.
I think I know where it needs to go next.
It needs to stop being so polite. It needs roughing up. It needs some dirt under its fingernails.
It needs an edge. A contradiction. Something that stops it behaving itself.
Because right now it's just too well mannered.
And that's exactly what's holding it back.
This one has been a brutal struggle. It's an ambitious engineering project: a 30% Extrait concentration designed to smell like a cold gin cocktail, inspired entirely by the friction between sharp angles and ultra-smooth finishes.
To pull this off, I had to completely step out of my comfort zone. The architecture required massive, rare components — specialty oils and distinct botanical materials I don't normally keep on the bench. Tracking them down, securing them within Europe, and importing them into the lab has been an incredibly difficult, expensive logistical nightmare.
But the friction is paying off. The opening is a sharp, biting smash of a bright botanical accord — heavy on Italian citrus bases, bitter peel, bone-dry bergamot, cracked black pepper, and cold cardamom spice. It immediately dives into a deeply luminous, green heart built on crisp green tea CO2 extraction, sharp aldehyde-fuelled florals, and wet, leafy stems. Underneath, I've constructed a dense moss and heavy wood structure using Haitian vetiver, deep cedar, and crystal-clear wood molecules to anchor the liquid.
The entire fragrance is pushed into the air by a nuclear diffusion engine of high-powered ambers and an ultra-luxurious, persistent musk trail. It's sharp, it's smooth, and it's a massive headache to source — but it refuses to be ignored. I'm really excited for this one. So excited that it already has a name.