“What would you like? Whiskey or
Gin?” my wife asked me. “I have always been a ‘Gin’ner…” I said. “Then pass the
Whiskey to me”, my son Prashanth said. “By all means” said my wife and handed
over the bottle to him. “I will splurge… no restraints please…” Prashanth said
and my wife said, “Go ahead. Indulge”. And she said, replete with a sad tone, “I
love Whiskey… but society doesn’t approve a woman having it. Umm… mhh… I will
settle for a Tea instead”
Readers… if you are going to
react like Juhi Chawla in one of the ads, “What a family?” let me hasten to clarify.
My decent Indian family was discussing about the perfume to be worn for a
special evening.
Perfumer (that’s how the
manufacturers love to be called) ‘Commodity’ has introduced last week a new
stink… no… no… a perfume for men! It is called ‘Whiskey’… with actual whiskey
smell. They also have one by name ‘Gin’ and another for women called ‘Tea’.
They can introduce a whole range instead and call it 'Happy Hour Perfume Range' :-)
Silly as this story is, it’s
actually not the first time some weird perfumer has unleashed a signature scent
upon consumers’ nostrils. Burger King apparently released “The Flame” in 2008,
a men’s body spray that embodied “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled
meat.” Not to be left behind, just a couple of months back, for Valentine
season 2013, Pizza Hut introduced “Eau du Pizza Hut” - the perfume is said to
smell like “freshly baked pizza dough and Italian herbs.”
I am sure, soon these will be
followed by McDonald, Taco bell, KFC and Starbucks’. Next time when you ask for
a burger or a pizza, you have to qualify it… to eat or wear! These days, the
gap between what we eat and drink, and what enterprising perfumers think we
want to smell like, is closing.
In another savory food scent
category is ‘Fargginay’s Bacon, which supposedly incorporates the aroma of
sizzling cured pork. As early as 1920, a Parisian butcher accidentally
discovered that the essence of bacon when mixed with some essential oils result
in a mood elevating scent. The tagline reads ‘Scent by the gods’. Now mix it
with the whisky cologne and you’ll smell just like a sizzling ‘Steak au Poivre’!
Most of the scotch whiskeys smell
like antiseptic lotion because of a sub-category of phenols called cresols--specifically
ortho-cresol. Cresols are very commonly used to dissolve other chemicals, which
makes them very useful as disinfectants and deodorizers. So when you wear ‘whiskey’,
you could end up smelling like a hospital cardiac ward, or maybe the emergency
room?
So now you can smell like
whiskey, or bacon or pizza… or all the three together! And soon someone will
bring out perfumes smelling like Body Odor and cigarette butts… you can smell
like a smoker without having to light up! I have a great idea which needs to be
patented immediately. Can anyone help? ‘Breaking Wind’ (you know what this euphemism is for!) category of perfumes… in varied flavors like garlic, broccoli, onion and
asparagus.
Now you could smell like an Apple product, too. It’s
the geek equivalent of new-car, new-gadget smell: That wave of plasticky aroma
that strikes your nostrils as you un-wrap a brand new computer... an Australian art collective called Greatest Hits has collaborated with a scent marketing company to bottle up the scent of a MacBook.
Fine… now get one thing straight...‘Don’t mix’ whiskey and gin and wear! You’re sure to get a hangover. So just go for one of them. And don't drive cars. Imagine
smelling like whiskey and driving a car. Perfect for those roadside sobriety
checkpoints.
I have been wondering what could
be the tagline for ‘Whiskey’… something like ‘For every man who wants to smell
like a
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