Gaucho (2008)
by Ayala Moriel

Dry, yet somehow damp and green. If you enjoy or know what real yerba mate smells like, this is similar, but disappointingly different. It smells more mossy than grassy, and more musty than fresh. I didn’t really enjoy this, since it smells old fashioned and kind of like a bitter, damp swamp, instead of how I imagined it would (ie. fresh Japanese green tea (sencha) and yerba mate). Well… I’ll stop complaining and just say that I didn’t like it.

I feel bad giving it a neutral because I admire Ayala's work (especially Razala), but this just didn't do it for me.

6/10

Absinthe (wormwood), “African stone tincture,” angelica, bergamot, broom (genet), deer’s tongue (liatrix), galbanum, “green cognac,” guiacwood, hay absolute, jasmine, neroli, rosemary absolute, yerba maté
What a fascinating list of ingredients! On her site, Ayala says, “coumarin is the soul of Gaucho” and I certainly agree. This is a very grassy scent, meant to evoke warm breezes coming off the pampas plains of Argentina. It is intense, amazingly tangy, dry... a grassy green rather than a leafy green or a forest green. It is so dry and bold that I think any man could wear it. I find the floral elements (jasmine, neroli and guiacwood which has rose qualities) are very background. There are many grassy or hay-like elements here and they dominate: broom, hay absolute, and of course the coumarin from the deer’s tongue. My research reveals that deer’s tongue was commonly used to scent tobacco, which is why this fragrance very much reminds me of my father’s tins of pipe tobacco. This is a completely unique sort of scent, nothing at all like the amber powdery fluff-ball of Yerbamate by Villoresi! Try it!