Red Mulberry

Red mulberry's reconstruction sits between blackberry and grape — deeper and slightly tarter than white mulberry, less wine-dark than the European black. Damascenone supplies the rose-fruity backbone, raspberry ketone the berry signature, ethyl maltol the honeyed warmth. The accord reads as a North American berry caught between sweet and tart, fading quickly on skin.

Red mulberry (Morus rubra) is the mulberry of eastern North America — distinct from Asian white mulberry (Morus alba, the silkworm tree) and Mediterranean black mulberry (Morus nigra). The species range covers the eastern United States from Ontario south to Florida and west to the Great Plains. The fruit is deep red to nearly black at ripeness, sweet, slightly tart, somewhere between blackberry and white mulberry in profile [A].

This note in Première Peau. Rose Monotone. Sample all seven extraits in the Discovery Set.

In perfumery

Red mulberry has no commercial perfumery extract — the fruit is too perishable and its aroma too water-soluble. Any 'red mulberry' note in fragrance is a reconstruction, built around damascenone (CAS 23696-85-7), raspberry ketone, ethyl maltol and a small ester palette — broadly similar to a generic mulberry accord but pushed slightly darker and tarter than white mulberry, less wine-dark than the European M. nigra reconstruction.

Sources & Notes

[A] Kew Plants of the World Online — Morus rubra distribution and taxonomy. powo.science.kew.org.