Elderberry

On a blotter the opening is tart and slightly sulfurous — not unpleasant, but sharp, like the first sip of a young, tannic red wine. A fruity sweetness sits underneath, berry-forward, but darker and less clean than raspberry or strawberry. There is something winey and almost fermented in the note.

After an hour the tartness mellows. The sweetness comes forward, jammy now, like blackcurrant preserves spread on toast. An earthy undertone develops — damp soil, mushroom-adjacent, the smell of the hedgerow where the berries grow.

Late in the day on a blotter: a dry, slightly syrupy sweetness remains. The winey edge is gone. What lingers is a quiet, dark fruitiness — berry compote reduced to a stain on the bottom of a pan.

Elderberry is the fruit of Sambucus nigra, the European elder, native across Europe and western Asia and naturalized in North America. The small, dark purple berries ripen in clusters from late August through September. Raw elderberries contain cyanogenic glycosides and must be cooked or processed before consumption — a detail that matters for extraction methods.

In perfumery, elderberry is niche. An absolute can be obtained by solvent extraction, and steam distillation yields a thin essential oil, but neither is widely available. Most "elderberry" notes in contemporary fragrances are accords — built from blackcurrant bud absolute (for the winey, sulfurous tang), fruity lactones, and sometimes a touch of castoreum or civet bases for the slightly animalic depth that distinguishes elderberry from cleaner berry notes.

Elderberry and elderflower come from the same tree but smell almost nothing alike. The flower is airy, lychee-like, and delicate; the berry is dense, winey, and slightly feral.

Explore all seven extraits in the Discovery Set.