Rai Munir

Musk Man
Great photos @Rai Munir , although I live in the city now I spent my first 18 years in similar surrounds and understand what you mean.
ps. I am not sure if that cow wants to be your friend :p(maybe it doesn't like musk:Roflmao:)
:Roflmao: Joe you have excellent observation. Yes, you are right. That very cow didn't like my stepping into their territory. Its anger is visible from its face. But, after some time, I befriended it. It was actually a newly bought one.
 
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Qayyum Shaikh

Oud Beginner
Barn: This is barn in Nature. Surrounded by lush rice, sugar cane and corn fields. There is an aroma generally unknown to the world in metropolitan cities. But I 'live' it. I assure everybody, both the places don't smell the barn generally classified here or is considered in Oud oil.
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Rice, sugar and corn fields surround the above posted areas. It is humidity here, and now there is perfect fragrance in the air.
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Assam Organic and Shah Jahan make me feel just ten per cent of the fragrance present in the air right now. Otherwise, ...!

I have been 'living' a mysterious 'river aroma' and this 'barnyard and paddy-cane-corn fields fragrance' since childhood. And if all are blended, it will be Musk;):p!

Cheers!
Beautiful place with a more beautiful soul love you Sir.
 

Mr.P

oud<3er
The thing I love about oud is the way so many aspects of the scent of forests, rivers, soil, decay, microbes, flowers, plants can be found. Personally I can take or leave the strong cheesy barn that seems so easy to incorporate into oud. I’m more impressed when the barn scent is there to an extent that creates depth but doesn’t directly draw attention to itself. This is both a preference and due to the fact that my wife thinks the barny oils literally smell like shit, and she really doesn’t have an interest in learning to like that particular smell... I love the animalic aspects of musk absolutely, but it is somehow different than the barn of oud.


From feel ouds experiments it seems clear that the barn note can be added by prolonging soaking. Been discussed ad nauseum here I am guessing. To me this kind of fermented barn kind of ruins oud - it smells spoiled to me.

I get wood delivered each year to burn, some of it beautiful smelling Douglas fir. Splitting logs from old mature trees reveals pockets of aged resin with the most amazing foresty aroma. When the wood has been stored improperly, too much water one way or another, I can always tell - the logs have this added cheesy barn layer- it is just like an oud that has been soaked a bit. It kind of ruins the scent for me - all I smell is improperly stored wood when oud has that note. It is like the oud has been invaded by some other stinky organism. this stinky organism makes all rotten wood smell similar. It isn’t Oud! (kidding sort of - I know how beloved the poopy oud is in the world of oud lovers and beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that).

There is a chocolate barn in some Hindi ouds that is quite different though... some other molecule.
 
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Where I work, there are thousands of wooden pallets in the yard at any given time. During rainy periods, the barn note emerges. Nothing that I would swipe mind you.

Distilling agarwood to define only it’s oleoresin is an artisanal task, but exploring the world of barn requires a Brewmaster. The tweaks occur before the distillation takes place as opposed to tweaking the apparatus. I would introduce certain strains of bacteria to the soak which would consume the other bacterias that are responsible for the foul smells, and propagate those which promote a pleasant barn. Too much microbiology involved, too much lab testing, just to refine the barn.
***Rant Alert***:hand::hand::handfist:
:D:Cooler:excuse me:Unsure::Whistling:
 

Mr.P

oud<3er
No - makes sense. Fermented oud is kind of like booze - all these strange notes added by the fermentation itself layered on top of whatever aromatics are there from the plant matter itself. All booze tastes a little different but it is all booze, and nothing at all like freshly extracted material. I am not a fan of "oud booze" but I love the stuff that's true to the wood. Russian Adam had this set of three oils, two soaked and one not. To my nose, the fermented oils are barely acceptable, whereas the direct extraction is sublime. I'm not hating on fermented oud for anybody else but it's weird to me that everyone sees this as part and parcel of oud itself. I like my handful of heavily fermented oils, but they are mainly curiosities that represent ascent traditions, and not something I find sublime.

I can make the barn stink by letting any wood sit in water for a while. The "cheese" note is the same deal. I know that smell - all I have to do is forget about a load of laundry sitting wet in the washer. There is this certain cheesy scent, something really amped up in Lao and fermented distillations in general, whenever I smell this in my clothes I am reminded of Lao oud.

Anyway, I am always looking for oud that does not smell like rotten wood and old laundry.

Curious about what you all think about the cheesy notes... I wonder if this connection to Lao oud is a result of local traditional extraction methods (very long soak) or something different about the microbes in the air or chemistry of the wood itself.
 

Rasoul Salehi

True Ouddict
The thing I love about oud is the way so many aspects of the scent of forests, rivers, soil, decay, microbes, flowers, plants can be found. Personally I can take or leave the strong cheesy barn that seems so easy to incorporate into oud. I’m more impressed when the barn scent is there to an extent that creates depth but doesn’t directly draw attention to itself. This is both a preference and due to the fact that my wife thinks the barny oils literally smell like shit, and she really doesn’t have an interest in learning to like that particular smell... I love the animalic aspects of musk absolutely, but it is somehow different than the barn of oud.


From feel ouds experiments it seems clear that the barn note can be added by prolonging soaking. Been discussed ad nauseum here I am guessing. To me this kind of fermented barn kind of ruins oud - it smells spoiled to me.

I get wood delivered each year to burn, some of it beautiful smelling Douglas fir. Splitting logs from old mature trees reveals pockets of aged resin with the most amazing foresty aroma. When the wood has been stored improperly, too much water one way or another, I can always tell - the logs have this added cheesy barn layer- it is just like an oud that has been soaked a bit. It kind of ruins the scent for me - all I smell is improperly stored wood when oud has that note. It is like the oud has been invaded by some other stinky organism. this stinky organism makes all rotten wood smell similar. It isn’t Oud! (kidding sort of - I know how beloved the poopy oud is in the world of oud lovers and beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that).

There is a chocolate barn in some Hindi ouds that is quite different though... some other molecule.
Amen. Like a perfectly seasoned dish, of salt is felt then it’s no longer well seasoned but salty. That’s why I very much love the likes of chugoku senkoh, hindustan 1, bahadur... supremely well integrated barn and not the fermented cheesy sour kind.
 

Rasoul Salehi

True Ouddict
No - makes sense. Fermented oud is kind of like booze - all these strange notes added by the fermentation itself layered on top of whatever aromatics are there from the plant matter itself. All booze tastes a little different but it is all booze, and nothing at all like freshly extracted material. I am not a fan of "oud booze" but I love the stuff that's true to the wood. Russian Adam had this set of three oils, two soaked and one not. To my nose, the fermented oils are barely acceptable, whereas the direct extraction is sublime. I'm not hating on fermented oud for anybody else but it's weird to me that everyone sees this as part and parcel of oud itself. I like my handful of heavily fermented oils, but they are mainly curiosities that represent ascent traditions, and not something I find sublime.

I can make the barn stink by letting any wood sit in water for a while. The "cheese" note is the same deal. I know that smell - all I have to do is forget about a load of laundry sitting wet in the washer. There is this certain cheesy scent, something really amped up in Lao and fermented distillations in general, whenever I smell this in my clothes I am reminded of Lao oud.

Anyway, I am always looking for oud that does not smell like rotten wood and old laundry.

Curious about what you all think about the cheesy notes... I wonder if this connection to Lao oud is a result of local traditional extraction methods (very long soak) or something different about the microbes in the air or chemistry of the wood itself.
Re lao you then owe it to yourself to get some keo or royal lao from taha or pusong Ltd from ensar. Latter I haven’t tried personally but from the source I have learned that it will be anything but.
 

Rai Munir

Musk Man
Respected PEARL, what about the feel and the aroma both Hindustan and Shah Jahan emit after a couple of hours? Yes, CS does exhibit its Chinese aspect, but that gives a new touch to Hindi tone of the oil.

If 'depth' is to be measured, which one would surpass the rest two?

Thank you.
 
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