Peaty blinders – eight great whisky-scented perfumes

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

“Whisky-inspired scents have a surprisingly short history,” says Lizzie Ostrom, author of Perfume: A Century of Scents. “If you look at midcentury men’s fragrance adverts, you’ll often spy bottles of aftershave carefully placed next to a tumbler of single malt (and a chess set). Whisky was rarely an aromatic inspiration, more a lifestyle prop. It’s only in the past 15 years that smoky, peaty, syrupy notes have really started to infiltrate men’s fragrance.” 

Whisky, cognac and rum notes offer a new signature scent with a deceptively gourmand side

The latest crop of fragrances find the spirit increasingly playing a leading role. It’s a key note in The Dandy, the new fragrance by Penhaligon’s (from £85 for 30ml) – a woody amber with notes of bergamot, cedarwood and patchouli that’s straight out of the gentleman’s club. “There’s an emerging trend towards whisky, cognac and rum notes, or what we call ‘boozy’ notes, in fragrance,” says Penhaligon’s perfumer Fabrice Pellegrin. “They offer a new signature scent with a deceptively gourmand side.” 

Whisky’s complex aroma – which contains more than 1,000 esters and other compounds – is hard to replicate. So Penhaligon’s is one of a growing number of perfumers now choosing to use real extracts of whisky and cognac barrels, which are captured via CO2 extraction. “We also employ another technique called FIRAD that can catch the aroma molecules from rum or whisky,” says Pellegrin, “and use essential oils from lit de vin wine sediment that reveals a subtle quality, reminiscent of whisky’s bottom notes.” His lodestar when creating The Dandy, he says, was the Islay malt Kilchoman Machir Bay.

Kilian Hennessy, founder of Kilian Paris, and a member of the Hennessy Cognac dynasty, often draws inspiration from spirits for his perfumes. His newest fragrance, Old Fashioned (£210 for 50ml), is a super-sweet tribute to the classic whisky cocktail that combines a potent hit of cedarwood with notes of davana (an Indian herb), heady immortelle and styrax (a warm, sweet leathery aroma, also key to YSL’s Opium).

A more contemporary take is Smokin’ Gun by cult Korean brand Born To Stand Out. This unisex scent has nose-tickling top notes of orange-spiked Campari, ginny juniper and sweet rum, that dry down into more aromatic, sweet-and-woody notes that recall a rye whiskey Manhattan (£160 for 50ml, bloomperfume.co.uk). 

BDK Parfums Vanille Leather, £205 for 100ml, harrods.com

Aesop Miraceti, £145 for 50ml

The showy Vanille Leather (£205 for 100ml, harrods.com) by French indie BDK Parfums uses whisky-barrel extracts to draw out vanilla’s more animalic side, then dials it up with potent tuberose, jasmine, orange blossom and violet.

Other liquorous scents channel whisky in a rather more elemental way – think a nip from a hip flask on the stormy Islay coast, rather than cocktails in a club. Aesop’s woody-green scent Miraceti (£145 for 50ml) is a hit of the outer Hebrides, combining salty seaweed green maté notes and aromatic whisky accords very evocatively.

Metamorphic, from Imogen Russon-Taylor’s Kingdom Scotland range (£132 for 50ml), conjures the stately scent of whisky barrels ageing in a warehouse with a blend of myrrh, amber, incense, tobacco and leather, infused with a deep note of rose. Portal – a crisp, green fougère with malted barley spirit, or “new make” accord – and the glacial Albaura are similarly exhilarating riffs on the Scottish landscape.

Jorum Studio Monolith, £114 for 30ml

Bloom Bois d’Ascèse, £150 for 50ml

If you like it really peaty try Jorum Studio’s Monolith (£114 for 30ml). Featuring birch tar, cade oil, coffee and vetiver, it’s briny, tarry, earthy, iodine-y – and rather thrilling in a feral way. Jorum uses oak extracts upcycled from whisky barrels in several of its fragrances and has been working on a scent that’s aged in oak casks like a single malt. This collaboration with “one of Scotland’s greatest master distillers” will be unveiled in 2025.

At Covent Garden’s niche perfumery Bloom a current bestseller is the unisex Bois d’Ascèse by Australian designer Naomi Goodsir (£150 for 50ml), a wonderfully charry marriage of incense, tarry cade wood and what creative director Renaud Coutaudier describes as “boozy/dirty” whisky barrel notes. It smells of wild bush fires, ancient churches and peaty Islay malts.