“There are no shipping routes to follow in the search for Ambergris, only the trails of the great cetaceans through the ocean depths. The sperm whale expels it from its huge abdomen, entrusting it to the waves, where it can remain for years. Finding it on an African or Australian beach is an increasingly rare occurrence. The olfactory experience - they say - is indescribable.”
Fairy-tales aside, it is actually a dark, waxy material that forms in the intestines of the sperm whale; it floats away, bakes in the sun and one day washes up on beaches, where it is collected.
Could there be anything rarer? Endowed with an exceptionally persistent, intense, sensual perfume, Ambergris has inevitably been associated with the erotic sphere.
In many countries throughout the East it was eaten as an aphrodisiac. The master perfumers of Venice used it widely in the 1700s, and Giacomo Casanova relied on it for his many exploits. The finest Ambergris is known as “flottée”, since it dries out naturally after floating at length on the sea; once mature, it develops a fragrance too complex even for the rich vocabulary of essences.
