Café Tabac
Aedes de Venustas (2023)

The "boozy fruits and tobacco" scent has been approached now from many different angles and has been rendered by many brilliant perfumers, going at least as far back as the 90s, but really crystalizing into something resembling its current form with releases like Michael for Men. It still seems to be going strong given its prevalence in niche perfume lineups, like this one.

Betrand Duchaufour is no stranger to fruit notes and dense, opulent perfume structures, and he weaves in a blend of apricot-y fruits (ala Ermenegildo Zegna Strength and Dior Tobacolor, though a touch softer) amongst a tonka-fog of smoky tobacco and woods. Cafe Tabac's strength amongst its competition is that the resinous, herbal, increasingly ashy drydown holds together better than most, avoiding the wispy tonka or piercing synthwoods that have often resulted in a disappointing chapter for many in this space.

The coffee here, despite the name, is quite subtle (more of a "cafe au lait" impression than a "roasted bean" woodiness) and I find myself disappointed that that coffee accent doesn't make itself more known, since it works so well as a counterpart to tobacco in Soliani's Bell'Antonio and Lalique's Or Intemporel 1888. If nothing else, it would help distinguish Cafe Tabac from its peers.

Ultimately, the challenge with Cafe Tabac is not that it isn't good, because it very much is, but that it's a "me too" scent in a genre that is feeling pretty close to exhausted (or, at least, overwhelmed with variations).