VIET HERITAGE ANTS' NEST 2021 • 100% Wild Ants' Nest Oud • Dong Nai, Vietnam

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VIET HERITAGE ANTS' NEST 2021 • 100% Wild Ants' Nest Oud • Dong Nai, Vietnam

(100% wild Oud oil, authentic wild-harvested natural agarwood essential oil)

Highlights: Old-school Vietnamese profile. Intense antique hardwood, Chinese apothecary, old books, pipe tobacco.

Material: 100% wild natural Aquilaria crassna

Production: 2021 distillation by a trusted artisan partner-distiller, from only a few fully mature and heavily ant-colonized Aquilaria crassna trees growing together in the wild forests of Dong Nai province, Vietnam. Stainless steel still with glass collector.

Scent description: Complex, deep, and distinguished, Viet Heritage Ants' Nest 2021 represents a very particular style of traditional Vietnamese Oud oil, and has had time to mature and come fully into itself. Far more than a collection of easily discerned and more common Oudy notes, this Oud strikes a mood and an ambiance. It evokes an old study or beautifully appointed private library: antique hardwood furniture, old books and parchments, leather chairs and sheepskin, dark rum and very old whiskey, black and amber pipe tobacco, a wall of Chinese apothecary, a naturalist's collection of taxidermy crowding every shelf: antlers and glass eyes catching the low light, and a few old oil paintings, their varnish gone dark with age. There are some early interjections of intense bitter green, like galbanum, or freshly trimmed flowerless rosebush. There is a powerful sweetness here too, but it's the tempered, more covert, more mature sweetness of almost-rotten black cherry, schisandra berry and tamarind, carob and astringent black manuka honey, Chinese angelica root and red ginseng. There is only a thread of refined smoke here: the pipe is present, but unlit, alongside jars of fine dark tobacco. (Almost a museum unto itself; perhaps no one would dare smoke inside this room.) Well into the dry-down, some more typical Oud notes do emerge: dates, raisin and dried apricot, orange marmalade, cassia... but without giving way to the preponderant antique complexity of this oil. Even as this oil sweetens and smooths, somehow vintage books, taxidermy, sheepskin, and antique hardwood continue to abide.

Notes of controversy: Refined and desirable "barny" aspects. Intense and complex, but not fermented. A thread of smoke, but nothing burned or overheated.


VIET HERITAGE ANTS' NEST 2021 • 100% Wild Ants' Nest Oud • Dong Nai, Vietnam

(100% wild Oud oil, authentic wild-harvested natural agarwood essential oil)

Highlights: Old-school Vietnamese profile. Intense antique hardwood, Chinese apothecary, old books, pipe tobacco.

Material: 100% wild natural Aquilaria crassna

Production: 2021 distillation by a trusted artisan partner-distiller, from only a few fully mature and heavily ant-colonized Aquilaria crassna trees growing together in the wild forests of Dong Nai province, Vietnam. Stainless steel still with glass collector.

Scent description: Complex, deep, and distinguished, Viet Heritage Ants' Nest 2021 represents a very particular style of traditional Vietnamese Oud oil, and has had time to mature and come fully into itself. Far more than a collection of easily discerned and more common Oudy notes, this Oud strikes a mood and an ambiance. It evokes an old study or beautifully appointed private library: antique hardwood furniture, old books and parchments, leather chairs and sheepskin, dark rum and very old whiskey, black and amber pipe tobacco, a wall of Chinese apothecary, a naturalist's collection of taxidermy crowding every shelf: antlers and glass eyes catching the low light, and a few old oil paintings, their varnish gone dark with age. There are some early interjections of intense bitter green, like galbanum, or freshly trimmed flowerless rosebush. There is a powerful sweetness here too, but it's the tempered, more covert, more mature sweetness of almost-rotten black cherry, schisandra berry and tamarind, carob and astringent black manuka honey, Chinese angelica root and red ginseng. There is only a thread of refined smoke here: the pipe is present, but unlit, alongside jars of fine dark tobacco. (Almost a museum unto itself; perhaps no one would dare smoke inside this room.) Well into the dry-down, some more typical Oud notes do emerge: dates, raisin and dried apricot, orange marmalade, cassia... but without giving way to the preponderant antique complexity of this oil. Even as this oil sweetens and smooths, somehow vintage books, taxidermy, sheepskin, and antique hardwood continue to abide.

Notes of controversy: Refined and desirable "barny" aspects. Intense and complex, but not fermented. A thread of smoke, but nothing burned or overheated.


Additional notes on all Oud from Aroma Sublime:

Give it to me straight… from the bottle?
A note on how we describe and assess Oud.
Our Oud oil descriptions never include aromatic impressions when the oil is sniffed straight from the bottle, or for the first 60 seconds after it is applied to your skin, since most Oud will initially present itself so intensely and overwhelmingly in those moments, that a scent analysis would be irrelevant and misleading. The scent descriptions we offer typically begin about 60 seconds after application to skin or other test substrate. Read more on this topic in our Learning Center.
Beginner level article: The Ritual of Oud for Beginners: How to Best Enjoy Oud.
Intermediate level article: Hype, Poetry, or Precision? On the Art of Describing Oud and other complex aromatics.

• Absolutely wild. When we say wild, we mean wild! All our “wild” designated agarwood and oil is from genuine 100% naturally occurring wild forest agarwood trees with no human interventions prior to harvest. Occasionally we might offer other options, but they will be clearly indicated as either “cultivated” (farmed) or “semi-wild” (agarwood growth influenced by human intervention in a natural setting). When we say wild, we mean wild! Learn more on this topic in our Learning Center article: Sustainability in Sourcing Wild Agarwood: How Aroma Sublime is Meeting The Challenge

• "Oud" versus "agarwood" disambiguation: For our purposes, here on the Aroma Sublime website, "Oud" will usually refer to the essential oil of agarwood, and "agarwood" to the raw wood itself. This website's terminology seeks to reflect the most common English usage for each form of the materials. It should be noted that for many English speakers, "Oud" might also refer to the raw wood, particularly among connoisseurs. Read more on this here.

• One-tree wonders. We strongly prefer single-tree agarwood harvests and single-tree Oud oil distillations. This has both environmental and aesthetic benefits, capturing the unique essence of a single, fully mature, agarwood tree. When this single-tree preference is not possible we strongly favor combining wood from only a few fully mature trees​ from the same geography, of known provenance, ​supplied by trusted and experienced harvesters. ​(the only exception would be in the case of carefully planned blends or co-distillations which we always describe with precision.) More and more you will see us moving toward single-tree productions. It’s part of our commitment to sustainability and our joy in honoring the individual aromatic “soul” of each tree we harvest. Learn more on this topic here.

•​ Beyond Words. We try to describe our Oud oils as accurately as possible using common vocabulary from a Western cultural perspective. There might also be some specialized technical or aromatic nomenclature as we seek also to educate and inform our customers. We hope to strike a balance; offering accessibility and straightforwardness while also providing some technical and specialized vocabulary when we think it is informative or necessary.  Our Oud descriptions are subjective and may vary slightly over time due to the effects of aging on Oud's aromatic profile, however, Oud oils will generally only improve with age, and the key features of a particular oil will generally be quite stable over time. We try to repeat the assessment process and update the detailed aromatic description for every Oud oil in our catalog at least once every 12 months. We pride ourselves on detailed accurate descriptions of our Oud oils, and we are happy to receive your constructive feedback on this topic. Read more on this topic in our Learning Center article: Hype, Poetry, or Precision? On the Art of Describing Oud and other complex aromatics.