One comment. “Ouddict” sounds like a relaxed community of oud nerds. “Artisanal Oud” sounds like a brand or marketing or whatever, reaching for that glittery oud marketing vibe, a little stuffy and self conscious.
I know this might not be the thread for it but the whole idea of “ Artisanal” is one that merits some reflection. I honestly think on a certain level it is kind of bullshit. I can’t speak from personal experience in distillation but I was actually reading an article about this. Extracting fragrance is not an art it is a Science . Making it into an art just kind of makes it harder for people to communicate and understand about the best ways to do it. I actually think the Artisanal label is used (by some) to hide a lack of scientific acumen, or to deliberately mystify the process to try to create a false sense of increased value.
I wish I could find this article I was reading. It was by someone in the distillation industry in India. It was mentioning that there all these different so-called Artisanal distillers but on average they’re producing mediocre product and inconsistent product and don’t actually have great control over production because they’re not controlling variables and really monitoring their processes scientifically. Basically the point of the opening of the article was that this tendency for folks to fall back on “artisanal” (as a cover for amateur) has caused a plague of poor quality products. Now maybe this is just sour grapes? Industrial types jealous of the ways small producers are free to experiment?
Of course one can meld the two as some of our beloved distillers do, and deliberately tweak scientific variables for producing an artistic aesthetic, but if you’re doing it with control and can reproduce it is it artisanal? You can call it that (maybe to attract all the “gentlemen” who like their bespoke and artisanally marketed man-cave accessories?)
What does Artisanal even mean? It’s not a great word to mean “meticulous with attention to detail and quality” in mind. I believe it kind of gets the sense that things are made intuitively or without careful scientific process. Maybe I misunderstand this term. I get the “non mechanized” and “non industrial” sense of the word is that really all we mean?
Anyway I get it, we like to imagine our oud masters as some kind of van Gogh whipping all of the elements together into some beautiful olfactory canvas. But really - it’s all just about mastering your inputs and system - measuring your water checking temperatures, particle size, soak time, choosing the proper condenser, allowing distillation to occur for the proper time, discarding the correct % of the first oil to come over to clear out the still notes. If you approach that stuff scientifically you could make some truly killer oils.
I actually think our successful artisans are actually successful scientists and to call them artisans is an insult. I don’t know who around here actually has their fingers in the pot, and distills enough to have enough data to proceed scientifically: I’ll guess that Al Shareef meets the standard of oud scientist. Tajul Bakshi is probably an oud scientist. Ramakant Harlaka is another distillation scientist.
