Aftelier Cassis: Perfume Review

In Russian, when something has started to ferment and turn into an alcoholic beverage, we say that it забродило (zabrodilo), literally -wandered off. The blackcurrant in Mandy Aftel's Cassis has definitely wandered off from the innocent dacha of my childhood and into places where my mama entreated me never to go. Corrupted with rum, smoke and spice, this is not your granny's blackcurrant jam. Drunken, dissolute, debauched, this is currant gone bad, really, really bad. As always, when a note in perfume "goes bad", in a sense that it acquires this boozy, very ripe, husky quality, I go right after it. Aftelier's Cassis makes me think of an unknown liquor...which I would very much like to know...if rum was distilled from berries and not molasses, this is what it would smell like...add to that thick, piquant, sweet fragrance the aroma of old oak barrels...stored in a dark cellar...in a house of someone your mama wouldn't want you to know...and you have an idea of Aftelier Cassis. To smell it for yourself, luckily (?) you don't have to visit mechant loup in his lair. Cassis is available at Aftelier.com, Henri Bendel, Blunda and Suendhaft, $150.00 for 1/4oz. Image, by Carter Smith, is from art+commerce.