This month I have been delving back into the world of fungi. With this years All Things Fungi festival having reconvened it was a pleasure to attend and learn about so many different aspects of fungi as well as giving a talk on ånd fragrance.
Several highlights included a great talk from Lukas Large of West Midlands Fungus group who dived deep into flavour and fragrance compounds of fungi. Amazingly there are fungi that smell of cucumber, almonds and also rotting flesh I hadn’t realised that fungi has such a range of scent. Most have the traditional ‘mushroom’ scent which can attributed to the aroma chemical Octanol – this is earthy, a little nutty and gives that fresh mushroom note. However, others have fatty coconut like lactone notes, some more like cucumber and if you get into the infamous Stinkhorns then you are in a world of sulphurous rotting death, described in a new book by Sion Parkinson! . Odd aromatic inspiration but I have always been fascinated by fungi and the festival is the perfect place to learn more.
Last year summoning up some of the notes the Stinkhorn I created a ‘Stinkhorn challenge’. The stinkhorns are distinct because they are easily identifiable up to a 100 meters away by scent alone. They have managed the art of horrific biomimicry – combining the smell of faeces (Indole/ Scatole), Vomit (Butyrate’s) and Sulphurous death (Di/ Tri Methyl Sulphides) which are pungent, volatile and spread fast. In making a small sample to recreate the smell of stinkhorn last year I accidently stunk out my daughters bedroom and she still hasn’t forgiven me.
This year we are releasing a few limited sets of last years launch - the more pleasant fungi that inspired “The Prince (Agaricus augustus)” fragrance in celebration of All Things Fungi Festival. This year we have a few sets left if you would be interested in a scent that explores this uniquely cherry like fragrant fungi – almond inspired scent that is warm, earthy and nutty in equal measure.
I am also trialling a new fragrance inspired by the warm cocoa and coffee notes of dried Enoki mushrooms. Very limited numbers made and it will include a small Velvet Shank mushroom from our friends at Jurassic Mushrooms who have grown a UK native mushroom.
So to usher in the Autumn with us fun guys as we smell, taste and celebrate everything a fungi.
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