Plum in Cognac
Scents of Wood (2020)

Scents of Wood Plum in Cognac is overwhelmingly the house’s highest-selling and best-known scent, an aptly-named boozy mix featuring plum. It’s plentifully sweet, spicy, boozy, dark, and deep, a fulfilling, rich experience for those like me that enjoy this class of gourmand-like fragrances featuring inspirations from liquor, liqueur, and wine. It does not fully feel like a fitting flagship fragrance for the line because it’s sweeter and boozier and less centered on wood notes, but it’s dazzling enough that it’s appeal is obvious, emblematic of the rise of the plum note in perfumery the past decade, and how lovely it fits in with fragrances inspired by alcoholic beverages. It’s slightly reminiscent of Rania J Ambre Loup, which has a similarly sweet and spicy cinnamon/resin note, but pivoted toward the feature plum note.

Like most of the line, Plum in Cognac is priced at $240/38 for 75/10ml, sold at great boutiques like Perfumology, and it performs very well, being anchored in resins and other long-lasting accords.

8 out of 10

Feels like an attempt to reproduce the feel of Creation E or Enigma Pour Homme by Roja Dove. Plum in Cognac smells very similar to Enigma Pour Homme to my nose. I haven't smelled Enigma for a few years, but based on my memory, this smells a bit like it.

Plum in Cognac is very long lasting on my skin and projects very well. It also has excellent sillage. The reason for my neutral rating is that I just don't care for the way this is blended. I want more plum and booziness and less synth woods. I sold my bottle of Enigma because I enjoyed Overture Man by Amouage more, and I also enjoy it more than Plum in Cognac. I was hoping to really love this one based on reviews I'd seen.

This scent projects a seriously no-nonsense vibe: it just screams all work and no play. It's dense, not overly sweet, not too synthetic or screechy smelling and has great longevity. Sophisticated and mature without being too austere.

Plum, vanilla, rum, and vetiver are main players. Could it really be this simple? I am sure there are other ingredients thrown in there but this scent's development follows this fragrant route. Fresh lightly osmanthus opens followed closely by the deepening sweet richness of plum. The plum is sweet, a little syrupy, and gives a dark and sensual vibe to the fragrance.

Then the booziness and spiciness of rum and tobacco interfers until it settles into the softest sweet warmth of vanilla and peru balsam. Hours later, you can smell a more stable base made of some woods, I'd say a creamy cedarwood (not listed); and vetiver. It doesn't smell overly trendy or girly, but yet it also doesn't smell vintage to me.

Contrary to the previous reviewers, I really like Plum in Cognac. To me it's a sweet, boozy, aromatic plum with tobacco, and a great vanilla-vetiver blend in the drydown. I find it gourmand but in a more than bearable way since I usually dislike gourmands. It's lush, and the idea of aging the sugarcane alcohol in vintage cognac barrels is enticing for a woman from Southern France... It may not be the most original fragrance but as I am more or less discovering the world of niche perfumery, it is a wonderful introduction to such scents. I am very pleased by this worthy addition to my small collection.

Goes on ashtray oak with plum and vanilla. Mostly really nasty. I think it’s the wood notes, but it smells like stale ashes. Hours later, though, dry down is really nice: a gorgeous tobacco-y plum vanilla. Later still, it’s edible peru balsam/vanilla/rum with tart plum notes. Dry down is heavenly, but the first few hours aren’t worth the wait for me. Overall a bit of a fail.

Predictable, synthetic, and fairly disappointing. I'll give it a neutral because it smells okay, but didn't live up to expectations ... and if this is their most popular composition, it doesn't bode well for other offerings from the house.

The award-winning Plum in Cognac offers notes I should love: plum, tobacco, cognac. But, alas, this feels unfinished to me.

The opening (a juicy burst of plum and spices) feels well-rounded and satisfying. But it fades alarmingly and disappointingly fast, shifting to a strange tobacco-vetiver mid that puts the notes at right angles with one another. The stemmy vetiver that Plum in Cognac uses cuts through the composition without blending with it, so it feels sharp and piercing, especially when juxtaposed with the soft, damp tobacco in the mid. There's the sense that something is missing, something that might integrate the vetiver into the rest of the scent. (I'm not a perfumer, but maybe a green-feeling patchouli would have been a more appropriate element.)

Things pull back together in the late drydown with a spiced vanilla effect that reminds me of Meharees (and, therefore, its successor, Musc Ravageur). It's nice enough here, if familiar.

Performance is relatively quiet even if longevity is good. This doesn't scream off the skin outside of its opening moments.