Red Skies

A saying heard first as a kid.

Red skies at night, sailors delight. Red Skies in morning, sailors take warning. The expression sounded mystical and full of wonder, and for a child who knew the high seas only from books and stories it fed the larger-than-life idea of the sea.

A chypre that sails through the salty ocean air. Bright, sunny skies at first, and as it evolves, richer and more traditional.

Kaffir lime leaf and bergamot are named first, then ocean air; jasmine and davana, an Indian herb, follow, orange blossom with ylang ylang; oakmoss and labdanum, the resin of the rock rose, and leather with musk named last.

Maher Olfactive is the work of Shawn Maher. The wish to make without restrictions on budget or materials led to this house. Olfactory art for art's sake: classic materials reframed in a way that presents them with a new sense of wonder. Behind the releases: a creek in the woods behind a grandmother's house south of Saint Louis, a sailors' saying about the sky, a line of T.S. Eliot's, the words painted under Magritte's pipe, a song of The Jesus and Mary Chain's.

Among the materials: osmanthus absolute taken by some of its less celebrated sides, its sweet, rich side made richer still through an oil made from lavender flowers alone, so none of the camphor of the stems comes with it; a coffee tincture Maher made from a locally roasted Yirgacheffe; and pipe tobacco and whiskey, not truly the things themselves but reproductions of them, extractions and distillations.