Zielperson

Take: 500 g of pork, onions, 1 head of red cabbage, 300 g of floury potatoes.

The pork is sharply browned, the diced onions briefly sautéed, the whole thing poured with water and with salt, pepper, allspice, cloves and bay leaf for 2 hours tender stewed. Then bind with starch, stir in half a cup of sour cream, so that a creamy sauce is formed.
The red cabbage is cut into thin strips the night before and put in a marinade of red wine, apple cider vinegar, apples, onion, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf, salt and sugar and soak overnight. Boil the cabbage together with the broth for 1 hour until soft and add a pinch of starch flour to give it shine, stir in a spoonful of lard.
Peel the potatoes and boil in salted water until tender.

Ready is a classic for the lunch table. The table fills with hungry eaters, it is applied and good appetite wished.

When you eat, you praise the kitchen, it tastes good, you get well full.

But something is there. What is that? Try again, hhmmmh, strange. Is something missing? Salt, sugar? No. HHmmmh. Everything considered. What stands out? It's in the red cabbage and the sauce! Suddenly the penny drops: it all tastes like clove!

Friends, so it happened to me with the Amber Oud Tobacco. Everything nice, at the beginning brash cinnamony opening, then fine tonka vanilla with a hint of incense, all carried by the sweet-spicy tobacco. Delicious! Lasts easily a 12; gigantic! BUT: this clove bangs incessantly. You have to really concentrate to be able to briefly focus on the well done blend behind it. It's such a shame. Why does one do that? If only one instrument in an orchestra is out of tune, you can hear it all the time, no matter how harmoniously everyone else plays. Thus, unfortunately, TF Tobacco Vanilla in my opinion not equal, because the harmony is right. Nevertheless, in principle not bad, especially just for lovers of cloves in winter mood.

The best way to grasp the Naxos and its complexity is to first take a little trip to the Mugler Pure Havane:

The Mugler smells from the overall impression perfectly round. Likewise, its scent course: a perfect ball that rolls down on a glass plate. Since nothing bounces, since nothing jumps, since nothing rattles. You get a mildly vanilla, golden meadow honey resting on a semi-dry light tobacco leaf, which in turn radiates mildly fine spice (not herbaceous, not plant-juice-like). The whole thing is wrapped in a covered honeycomb of honey wax, so that the very fine, herbaceous plant scents, which are inevitably picked up when collecting the pollen, are filtered away. Any presumed sticky sweetness also disappears through this neutral wax filter: only an idea of minimal caramel-like maltiness reaches the nose, supported by a dusting of cocoa. That's about it. Nothing floral, smoky, leathery. No powder.

The Xerjoff Naxos now you can basically imagine for now just as. However, it does not remain! In addition, an earthy-peaty fragrance chord joins. One thinks now and then to sniff out delicate leather of the softest luxury quality. Or even a trace of pine resin or young pine needles. Whereby this peaty strongly weakens the vanilla. The Xerjoff is thus noticeably more complex.

Is more complex now better? Given, one would take both fragrances lovingly, for sure! The Mugler awakens the association of a meadow honey-tobacco melanche wrapped in a gossamer beeswax honeycomb. You smell that very honeycomb structure. The Xerjoff develops the theme further. One associates it with a wild bee that is flying home to the hive, packed with forest honey, over a hazy peatland, to deliver its precious cargo. One smells, so to speak, the flying insect, to which the olfactory impressions of the "workplace of nature" are additionally attached. The olfactory impression is thus larger, but also somehow more pungent in association. So to speak wilder, somehow also edgier, more excited. In the case of Naxos, the Mugler honey is topped off with the natural trappings, one might almost say the natural confusion, as an encore, so to speak. The fragrance space depicted in the Xerjoff is larger - more complex. Its overall concept is more expansive. The Mugler is the extracted result, simply the end of the chain. The Xerjoff is additionally the documented origin. Moreover, Naxos' top note is much richer. The head note of the Xerjoff is actually by far better!

Given the Mugler's difficult availability in the fall of 2021, the Xerjoff has a heavy advantage from this perspective. Both scents are great. Fragrance twins? No! Same fragrance family? Yes! Read somewhere here once: if you love the Mugler, you will adore the Xerjoff. That's so true, because the Xerjoff tells the whole story, so it's more perfect, because it's more high definition. More creation told. Now whether this added value smells better, only a personal sniff test can reveal. More pure in the sense of clearer is, as said, the Pure Havane.

It is extremely regrettable that Pure Havane has been discontinued - that much up front. Because there is currently no other way to capture the basic theme of "honey" in a masculine fragrance somehow better. The olfactory impression of this pleasing fragrance is perfectly round. So is its progression: a perfect ball rolling down a glass slab. And it does so for many hours. Nothing bounces, nothing jumps, nothing rattles. You get a mildly vanilla, golden meadow honey resting on a semi-dry tobacco leaf, which in turn radiates mildly fine spice (not herbaceous, not herbal sap-like). The whole thing is wrapped in a covered honeycomb of honey wax, so that the very fine, herbaceous plant scents, which are inevitably picked up when collecting the pollen, are filtered away. Any presumed sticky sweetness also disappears through this neutral wax filter: only an idea of minimal caramel-like maltiness reaches the nose, supported by a dusting of cocoa. That's about it. Nothing floral, smoky, leathery. No powder.

The Xerjoff you can basically imagine for now also so. But it does not remain! In addition, an earthy-peaty fragrance chord joins. One thinks now and then to sniff out delicate leather of the softest luxury quality. Or even a trace of pine resin or young pine needles. Whereby this peaty strongly weakens the vanilla. The Xerjoff is thus noticeably more complex.

Is more complex now equal to better? Given one would take both fragrances lovingly, that much is certain. The Mugler awakens the association of a meadow honey-tobacco melancholy covered in a gossamer beeswax honeycomb. You smell that very honeycomb structure - that's the Pure Havane. The Xerjoff develops the theme further. One associates a wild bee just flying home to the hive, packed with forest honey, over a hazy peatland to deliver the precious cargo. One smells, so to speak, the flying insect, to which the scent impressions of the "workplace of nature" are additionally attached. The olfactory impression is thus greater, but also somehow more pungent in association. In the case of Naxos, the natural trappings are added on top of the Mugler honey, as an encore, so to speak. The fragrance space depicted in the Xerjoff is larger - more complex. The overall concept is different. The Mugler is the extracted result, the end of the chain. The Xerjoff is also the protocol of its creation. Moreover, its top note is much richer. The top note of the Xerjoff is actually really better!

I ultimately decided to purchase a bottle of Pure Havane. However, the probability of getting the 100 ml Mugler at a reasonable price (mid 50 euros) is minimal in autumn 2021. The Xerjoff, on the other hand, is freely available, a big plus. Both fragrances are great. Read somewhere here once: if you love the Mugler, you'll adore the Xerjoff. This is so true, as the Xerjoff tells the whole story, thus is more perfect in the sense of high definition. More creation telling. More pure, however, is the Havane - Pure Havane just as the name says!