cherry: 2 posts

Before working for a fragrance and flavor company for several years, I had often wondered why cherry-flavored candy tasted nothing like the real thing. It turns out that just as perfumers have their classical accords to create the scent of rose, amber or jasmine, so do the flavorists. The cherry accord, for instance, is based on a compound called benzaldehyde, which has an almond-like scent, and since the molecule is present in cherry pits, it inspired the cherry flavor most of us recognize from sweets, liqueurs and cough syrups. Even if it lacks the tartness and floral accents of real fruit, today’s flavorists are bound by public expectations to keep to the classical cherry accord. Anything else may not register as cherry to many people.

In my recent FT magazine column, Scents of Cherries, I write about the flavor and fragrance of cherries and explore fragrances that capture something of the natural cherry scent. Cherry accords can appear in the most unexpected contexts in fragrances, from delicate colognes to warm orientals, without losing their distinctiveness. So, I share some of my favorites.

Right now, I’m also enjoying the cherry season, and I look forward to the sour cherries. They may taste tart, but they smell sweet and heady.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

Expensive fragrances get more scrutiny, and that’s only fair. If a brand wants you to pay over $200 for a bottle of scent, then you should be certain that you’re getting your money’s worth. In the case of Tom Ford, you’re paying for the name, luxurious packaging and the whole style factor that gives Ford an edge. That being said, the collection has a number of perfumes where even the special markup can be justified. Lost Cherry is one of those fragrances, because when Ford wants a bombshell perfume, he doesn’t hold back.

The name, only a touch less vulgar than Tom Ford’s F*cking Fabulous, suggests fruits and sweetness, but Lost Cherry is a sophisticated blend of woods in the style of Serge Lutens’s original Feminité du Bois. Lutens commissioned it as a woody fragrance for women, a request that at the time made a few eyebrows rise. 27 years later, nobody is surprised by “feminine woods,” but many brands still shy away from embracing the idea fully. In other words, woods play a secondary role to fruit, caramel, flowers or vanilla. Women who want woods, without too many embellishments, might well turn to the masculine side of the fragrance counter. 

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