Behind the scent: Saddle & Smoke

Saddle & Smoke was the hardest of our fragrances to get right and the one we are asked about most. It started with a specific memory rather than a brief: a tack room in late autumn, oiled leather and old wood, and a fire going somewhere else in the building.

The notes

It opens dry and slightly sharp, with black pepper and a thread of birch tar that reads as woodsmoke rather than a bonfire. Underneath that is the leather accord the scent is built around, warmed with tobacco leaf and a little cured vanilla so it does not turn austere. It settles on cedar and vetiver, which is the part that stays in a room after the candle has been put out.

Getting the smoke right

Smoke is easy to overdo. Push it too far and a candle smells like an extinguished match, which is the one thing a candle must not do. We spent a long stretch of last year pulling the birch back a few percent at a time until it sat behind the leather instead of in front of it. The version we settled on smells smoky in the room and barely smoky up close, which is the right way round.

Where it works

This is an evening fragrance and a cold-months one. It suits rooms with something to push against: dark walls, wood, books, a rug. It is very good on a dining table once the plates have been cleared, and good in a study. It is too much for a bedroom for most people, and it will fight with a kitchen. If your house is bright and pale and you want something in this direction, Canyon City takes a similar warmth somewhere lighter.

How to burn it

Give it the full first burn to the edge of the glass, then three or four hours at a time after that. It is a slow-building scent; it does not announce itself in the first ten minutes and it is not meant to. Light it when people arrive rather than when they sit down.

Available as a candle and a reed diffuser.