You Can Now Wear – And Drink – A Gin Perfume
Not too many of us regularly think about taking a swig of perfume, but for those who do, Tamworth Distillery just dropped a gin perfume that's safe to sip. Yes, that's right, you can spray it on your skin, or you can spritz it in your gin cocktail for added flavor.
In an interview with Food & Wine, the distillery's founder and one of the perfume's creators, Steven Grasse, explained that he got the idea from reading about how "spirits were created [in] the search for perfume." Grasse then partnered with botanical chemist Matt Power to create a formula that both smelled like gin and was safe for consumption.
After two years of hard work, Tamworth Distillery finally produced the Sylvan Mist gin perfume, containing all the scents and flavors you would expect of a regular gin. The perfume is now available for pre-order on the distillery's website, to be shipped on May 12. Each 100 ml bottle costs $80, which might seem a bit pricey for a bottle of gin, but is pretty reasonable for perfume. That being said, what went into this little bottle to make it cost so much?
Tamworth Distillery's struggle to formulate drinkable perfume
As you might expect, it's no easy feat formulating a perfume that can also be enjoyed as a sip of gin. The perfumes we buy at department stores and beauty retailers rely on the scents of essential oils, but according to Poison Control, many of these oils can be poisonous if ingested. Therefore, Tamworth Distillery had to find a way around this.
In the end, Matt Power landed on a mix of chamomile flowers, violet leaf, juniper, citrus, balsam fir, and boronia flowers. Many of these botanicals are actually already used in popular gin brands, while violet leaf and boronia flowers are common among perfumes. Boronia in particular likely has a strong hand in the Tamworth Distillery gin perfume's $80 price tag, as this flower's oil is worth $10,000 per kilogram.
Regardless, if you really want to upgrade your gin from basic to bougie, a spritz of Sylvan Mist would probably do it. After all, does it get any bougier than expensive Australian flowers and drinkable perfume?