coumarin: 2 posts

Several years ago, a friend gave me a jar of chocolate and tonka salt from a Viennese outfit called Zum Schwarzen Kameel. It’s a delicatessen and a culinary complex famous for its unique interpretation of classical Austrian specialties. The salt was a mix of coarse salt crystals, black pepper, pieces of cacao beans and tonka. Only a small quantity of the latter was present, but its cherry-almond scent made the salt a heady, fragrant mixture. I’ve used it on grilled meat and fish, but it shone best on winter vegetables like cabbage, turnips, swedes, potatoes, and parsnips. I’ve since made my own version, using equal amounts of black pepper and cacao beans and a smidgen of tonka shavings for perfume. The recipe is at the end of the article.

The reason I was stingy with tonka bean in my blend is because it’s a potent ingredient.  The scent of toasted almonds, amarena cherries, sun-warmed hay and vanilla custard lingers well, and tonka bean’s is one of the most luscious and seductive aromas in a perfumer’s palette. It was also responsible for a revolution in modern perfumery.

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Created in 1889, Guerlain Jicky is at once a timeless classic and a remarkably modern fragrance.  One story is that Aimé Guerlain created it in honour of his English girlfriend; however, another version is that it was dedicated to his nephew Jacques Guerlain, whose nickname was Jicky. Jicky is considered to be the first fragrance to combine natural and synthetic essences.

Although it is undeniably an important starting point of modern perfumery, Fougère Royale by Houbigant (1882) was the first perfume to use a man made material: coumarin, an almond redolent ingredient derived from tonka beans. Jicky went out step further by combining coumarin and vanillin, another synthetic essence.

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