Al Haramain / الحرمين
Al Haramain / الحرمين
611 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Cinnamon explodes with the subtlety of a struck match, all fiery bark and immediate heat, whilst black pepper prickles at the edges and ginger adds a sharp, almost citric brightness. Fresh tobacco leaf contributes a green-bitter quality that briefly holds back the tidal wave of sweetness threatening to engulf everything, creating a volatile, kinetic tension.
The spice barrage softens into a dense, almost fudge-like sweetness as tonka bean and vanilla conspire with cocoa to create something simultaneously edible and resinous. Star anise brings a liquorice-sharp medicinal quality whilst frankincense smoke drifts through like incense in a patisserie, the tobacco now fully candied and syrupy, clove adding its numbing warmth to the confection.
What remains is a tenacious amber-woody sweetness, all dried fruits macerated in fortified wine and tobacco leaves pressed into dark honey. The woods provide structure without ever dominating, letting the vanilla-tonka pairing continue its sticky embrace for hours, a lingering ghost of cinnamon and smoke clinging to fabric and skin.
Al Haramain's Amber Oud Tobacco Edition is a crimson-hued study in spiced confectionery, where tobacco leaf meets the souk's sweetshop with unapologetic intensity. The opening salvo of cinnamon and black pepper creates an immediate heat that borders on aggressive, but it's the ginger that saves this from becoming a one-note firework—its citric zing cuts through the density, whilst raw tobacco leaf adds a bitter-green counterpoint to all that warmth. This isn't the genteel pipe tobacco of English drawing rooms; it's darker, stickier, almost treacly in its sweetness.
The heart reveals Al Haramain's true intentions: a full-bodied gourmand anchored by tonka bean and vanilla that would feel cloying were it not for the medicinal sharpness of star anise and the resinous frankincense smoke weaving through the cocoa-dusted clove. There's something deliberately maximal about the composition, as though each note has been turned up to eleven. The tobacco accord shifts from green to syrupy, macerated in dried fruits that recall figs steeped in Pedro Ximénez sherry.
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4.0/5 (209)