Black Collection - Al-Andalus Moresque

Al-Andalus is a fragrance that wears its scholarly ambitions openly—a meditation on medieval Iberian spice routes rendered in olfactory form. The ginger and saffron open with an almost medicinal clarity, their peppery edge suggesting a apothecary's cabinet rather than a perfumer's bench. But this is where Casotti's restraint becomes evident: rather than allowing these top notes to dominate with facile brightness, he orchestrates them as a gateway to something far more serious.

The Indonesian oud that emerges is not the typically creamy, almost buttery oud of mass-market fragrances. Instead, it arrives with a dusty, slightly acrid character—there's leather and tobacco leaf in its shadow, a wooden quality that suggests aged manuscripts and incense smoke curling through stone corridors. The French labdanum and tolu balm create a resinous amber base that's distinctly old-world; this is not the transparent, modern amber of contemporary fragrances, but something honeyed and almost animalic, with edges of birch tar.