GOLDEN LOTUS sandalwood • in-house premium 100-year Mysore sandalwood essential oil • INDIA
GOLDEN LOTUS sandalwood • in-house premium 100-year Mysore sandalwood essential oil • INDIA
GOLDEN LOTUS sandalwood • in-house premium 100-year Mysore sandalwood essential oil • INDIA
• production: January 2023 in-house low-temperature hydro-distillation lasting 8 days of selected wood from 100-year-old trees. This is our own limited-edition distillation of hand-selected extra-old Mysore premium sandalwood, slowly, gently, and patiently distilled at our own Vietnam headquarters by Tha and Pierre. Copper still, glass condenser. Aged one full year before release.
This the our new sandalwood distillation meeting the same standard set by Tony`s GOLDEN BOUGH 2016 sandalwood oil, now sold out. GOLDEN LOTUS 2023 will not disappoint!
• species: Santalum album
• notes of controversy: none
• part used: heartwood, dry-aged 12 years before distillation.
• scent description: GOLDEN LOTUS is a glowing, creamy, buttery homage to rare extra-old Mysore sandalwood; full, buoyant, expansive, and perfectly round, with mellow honey, roasted ghee, a touch of sweet ripe stonefruits, muscat, and Sauternes notes. There are absolutely no sharp edges here, but it still maintains an incredible breadth and structure, superb longevity and grand projection. Aroma Sublime sets a new highst-level standard among genuine Mysore sandalwood oils. An investment grade oil that will only improve with age.
The raw material required to make this oil is becoming exceedingly rare and ever more expensive, making our current stock potentially our final supply. Genuine Mysore extra-old sandalwood trees that are 100 years old, are almost impossible to find these days. We had to use an Indian government contact to obtain this quickly vanishing wood at great expense, but it’s your nose that will tell you the truth about our Golden Lotus. Even those already familiar with very good sandalwood will level up and discover what the world’s best sandalwood essential oil is all about.
SOME ADDITIONAL NOTES ON OUR SANDALWOOD SELECTION
There are two primary themes operating in the world of Santalum album sandalwood essential oil:
Approach #1 “Quintessence” is the large-scale sandalwood industry seeking to create a consistently clean, round, straightforward sandal aroma with a high santalol content, always looking toward a kind of quintessential "perfect", “clean”, “pure” sandalwood aroma. Any kind of divergent complexity, unexpected aromatic notes, or noticeable impressions of the terroir are discouraged here. This is really important when predictability is desirable, such as for the perfume industry. High Santalol content is the most important feature here. Quality and aromatic density increases with the age of the tree. Aging an already good oil in this category will almost always make it more buttery and round and smooth, eliminating sharper top notes that tend to feature in younger oils. The goal is consistency and a kind of quintessential sandalwood perfection.
Approach #2 “Character” is one that favors variety and explores divergent sandalwood aromas that reflect unique tree and terroir as well as special processes in growing, harvesting, wood aging, processing, distillation, and aging of the finished oil itself. Of course it must first be recognizable as a true classic sandalwood aroma and higher santalol content will definitely be a desirable factor. However, this paradigm also favors interesting and unexpected aromatic notes as long as there is also discernible refinement and quality that would meet some kind of consensus among people with some kind of reasonably informed perspective. That is to say, it can't just be "interesting", it must be "interesting and good"!
This particular sandalwood oil, our GOLDEN LOTUS Mysore Santalum album, is much more expressive of Approach #1 “Quintessence”, representing a kind of ultimate top-level expression of the finest classic Mysore sandalwood essential oil classically distilled from extra old trees.