The Journal

Field notes.

Field notes on the five materials, the production facts behind them, and what we have not solved.

Six hundred years of distilling the rain

Clay, a copper still and a wood fire. The one material in the collection with no synthetic equivalent.

The tree makes its resin only where it has been damaged. Why oud is priced by the tola.

Six to eight weeks in steel before a bottle is filled. What the wait does, and why we refuse to rush it.

A week in Kashmir among the crocus fields that produce the most prized aromatic material on earth.