St. John's Bay Rum

simplicity

Photo LT

As I said in a previous post, I walked by a British clothing store in San Francisco, went in and bought a bottle of St John’s Bay Rum in its lovely basket bottle, recommended by the owner as the most old fashioned one. I had taken no fragrance with me on the trip, for fear of it being trashed at security, and wore Bay Rum for a week.

It is even better than I thought, and is perhaps the best minimalist alternative to an Eau de Cologne I’ve come across. It smells mostly of cloves, but the accord (more about that below) somehow manages not to be overly reminiscent of the pure clove oil dentists once used as a local anesthetic and antiseptic. There is in fact nothing medicinal about it, and a citrus-pine note gives it a contrasting freshness.

All these years I naively thought that Bay Rum was just that, bay leaves steeped in rum, and indeed many online sources repeat that story. It seems I was wrong. Proper Bay Rum is an alcoholic infusion of a different plant, not Laurum nobile but Pimenta racemosa, also known as West Indian bay, or Bay Rum tree, a member of the myrtle family. Based on the St John website, it seems that the tree smells good enough not to need the help of a perfumer, and as far as I can tell their Bay Rum contains no other materials.

Looking up the composition of Pimenta essential oil confirms this. It contains a lot of eugenol (cloves) and small amounts of limonene, pinene and geraniol (rose). It looks like evolution, having achieved the desired antibacterial effect of eugenol, decided to pretty things up. Pimenta essential oil also contains methyl chavicol, likely enough to make it non-IFRA compliant, a little extra thrill for those who enjoy a little contraband without the risks.

If indeed the St Johns Bay Rum only contains one ingredient, that would make it the simplest natural formula in all of perfumery, since even lavender soliflores contain fixatives like musks or phytol. Bay Rum probably does not need any, since eugenol is tenacious and fairly linear. This is the fragrance for days when anything more complicated is too much. Once in a while, you can let nature be the perfumer and just enjoy.