Its enough indication that this is
the only Agar Aura oud from Borneo island
that has ever been donned "Royal", to realize just how
amazingly high the quality of the raw material was.
For about two years the wood sat in a box in my storage room
while I tried to find more genuine Malinau agarwood to
juice.
Since then, I was unable to find a single splinter from
Malinau. Plenty of alleged Malinau wood, sure.
Like agarwood from Brunei, slapping on the Malinau label
easily doubles the market price. But I was after real
Malinau agarwood for its aroma and not the name.
Inspecting batch after batch of raw materials, and not
finding any genuine Malinau wood, I finally decided to cook
this batch and pay it the mightiest homage a distiller can:
to capture the finest, purest, most pristine essence of the
raw material.
This.Is.Malinau.
Oozing its glorious Malinau character by the
bucketfuls, there are very few oud oils from this prized
region of Borneo that are of this caliber (only three other
Malinau oud oils from my colleagues come to mind).
Now add to that the fact that this was distilled from not
only incense-grade wood, but ambiently-aromatic
incense-grade wood. If you've tried Agar Aura's other
hand-made oils distilled from ambiently-aromatic wood (like
Ceylon No.1, Kalbar No.1, New Guinea No.1), then you should
know what to expect.
Yep. This is one insanely awesome Malinau oud.
The only batch I've hand-cooked myself so far, and judging
from the current state of affairs in Malinau, most likely
the last one too.
The aroma:
Pure Gen3, i.e. the truest essence of the oleoresin. So
plenty of sweet clementine, candied blueberries and vanilla
(fruit creamsicle, anyone?). None of the wet dog fur or damp
cardboard aroma found in most Indonesian (mis)distillations,
that ruins the drydown of otherwise excellent quality
Malinau oud oils. Royal Malinau was meticulously
hydro-distilled in copper apparatus.
And since the wood was ambiently aromatic, like all other
Gen3 oils cooked from wood of this rare varietal, the
ambient aroma of the wood itself was preserved in the oil
too – something I otherwise prefer to avoid, keeping the
focus solely on the oleoresin. This added facet brings a
creamy sweetness, similar to classic Mysorean sandalwood.
Not so much in aroma, as the overall texture.
If you missed out on Kekasihku,
you owe it to yourself to grab a bottle of Royal Malinau.
Although the sub-specie is not the same, the daintiness that
puts Brunei and Malinau oud head and shoulders above all
other Borneo oud oils is equally blatant in both.
Rarity-wise, believe it or not, true Malinau agarwood is
even scarcer than Bruneian. So don't miss your chance to
claim this treasure!