Manipur 2018

For a long time, I had a difficult relationship with Hindi oud oils.

I loved Hindi agarwood. I loved the smell of high-grade Indian oud on charcoal. But many of the oils I encountered carried that heavily fermented, barnyard character that people had somehow started associating with Hindi oud.

That was never what Hindi oud meant to me.

Then, in 2018, I went to Manipur hunting for oud.

During that trip, I met a local distiller and smelled an oil he had produced from high-grade wild Manipur agarwood.

I remember smelling it and thinking:

Finally.

This was Hindi oud.

There was no overwhelming barnyard character. Nothing distracting me from the wood.

Instead, I found a beautiful fruity character, almost like dark plum, followed by that warm spiciness I associate with Indian agarwood.

Most importantly, I could smell the oud.

And this became the first Hindi oud oil, other than my own distillations, that I genuinely wanted to keep for myself.

I wasn’t buying it because I thought I could sell it.

I bought it because I wanted it.

The batch wasn’t large, so I took the entire thing.

That was in 2018.

Years later, the oil has continued to mature. The fruitiness has become beautifully integrated with the wood, the spicy Indian character remains, and age has given the whole oil a smoother, deeper presence.

For me, Manipur 2018 also represents something bigger.

It reminded me that the barnyard character often associated with Hindi oud does not have to define Hindi oud.

Start with exceptional wood. Treat it properly. Let the character of the agarwood speak.

What you find underneath can be completely different.

Fruit. Plum. Spice. Wood.

This bottle takes me back to Manipur, to an oud-hunting trip, and to the moment I smelled a Hindi oud oil that I didn’t want to trade.

I wanted to keep it.