Mad Sweeney

[Em-]

"Coin tricks is it?" asked Sweeney, his chin raising, his scruffy beard bristling. "Why, if it's coin tricks we're doing, watch this."

He took an empty glass from the table. Then he reached out and took a large coin, golden and shining, from the air. He dropped it into the glass. He took another gold coin from the air and tossed it into the glass, where it clinked against the first. He took a coin from the candle flame of a candle on the wall, another from his beard, a third from Shadow's empty left hand, and dropped them, one by one, into the glass. Then he curled his fingrs over the glass, and blew hard, and several more golden coins dropped into the glass from his hand. He tipped the glass of sticky coins into his jacket pocket, and then tapped the pocket to show, unmistakably, that it was empty.

"There," he said. "That's a coin trick for you."

Barrel-aged whiskey and oak.

This is the whiskey scent for everyone who has ever looked at the wine scents and wondered why there wasn't something harder.

The oak just cures this baby, because this is the whiskey-soaked Irishman all the way. Which is a good thing in my book, but probably not something I'll be wearing to, say, the office.

[Ina Garten Davita]

Mad Sweeney! Don't wear this scent and drive. You'll blow over the legal limit. I'd say that this scent may just be the ticket if a girl is trying to land herself a British husband. It smells like the most warm and sensual glass of very expensive Scotch whiskey.

[couscous]

Well...this is an easy enough review to write!

 

STRAIGHT WHISKEY.

 

It does, eventually, dry down to a hazelnut coffee-type loveliness, but there are no other surprises here. It is exactly what it claims to be.

 

As for whether he works as a perfume or not- I think Sweeney is the best of the carousel I've tried so far. I love it straight, and I'm sure I'll love it layered, too. I smell like an Irish pub, but without the vomit. Who wouldn't adore smelling like that?

 

Mad Sweeney is a slightly depraved, slightly elegant, and infinitely original perfume, and I'm sure I'll be getting a second bottle at some point. Love it, love it, love it.

Edited February 18, 2007 by couscous

[Athenae]

Great sweet holy mother of us all.

 

This is what I want to smell like. I know I'm a fickle scent whore who says things like that all the time, about every new scent and every GC I finally get around to trying, but man, you've got to understand, scotch was the first liquor I ever tried, it's the only drink I'm never out of, and I've been longing for something that smelled just like it ever since I found BPAL. Devil's Night was too smoky, Sugar Skull too sweet, all the wine scents turned into plastic fruit on me ...

 

But this. THIS.

 

I mean, Jesus, Beth ... Man.

 

It's so strong in the bottle I can hardly stand it, just straight whiskey like I'm splashing myself with the contents of the half-bottle of Lagavulin over on my liquor cabinet. But on, the oak makes it spicy instead of dry-woodsy, until it dries down to something that isn't cardamom, but has the same kind of warmth behind it. The boozy sweetness is still there, underneath, making me feel decadent, like I'm sitting at my favorite table sipping on this while looking down at a man at the other end of the bar who can't take his eyes off me.

 

(I'm actually in my pajamas with unwashed hair trying desperately to finish a writing assignment, but that's how this makes me feel.)

 

Sweet baby Jesus on a pink pogo stick. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is gonna get HELLA rich off me this month.

 

A.

[Scylla]

Oh, yeah, Mad Sweeney definitely smells like a fine barrel-aged scotch whiskey. Definitely don't slather and drive!

 

It's so evocative of Mad Sweeney's character. Well done, Beth!

[savage_rose]

I tried dabbing this on both my husband and I, and I made the mistake of sniffing too closely and too deeply. I THINK IT SINGED MY NOSE HAIR...ow, the burning. I generally revel in a good, deep inhalation, but that was a killer. A night of perfume debauchery cut all too short by a careless sniff. A lesson well heeded, kids. And don't sniff this until you're at least 21.

 

So, after I (somewhat) regained my powers of olfactory analysis, I realized that it reminded me of something else...sniff sniff. NYQUIL. Not only the alcohol, but something kind of medicinally green. And as it dries...Absinthe, much more pleasant. So yeah, alcohol and something else (possibly herbal). And it definitely loses potency as it dries and sits, but that's a good thing with this one, IMO. Unless you're trying to pick someone up at a bar, in which case this might very well make you irresistable.

[sookster]

straight sniff from imp is pure dewar's scotch...

once applied it sweetens up to perfection...this

is the ultimate, oaky whiskey and i just love it!!!

huzzah!!

much love to mme. moriarty for such a treat...xo

[kmasden]

okay, so i love booze scents...love the idea of them. love booze...if you know me, you know i love my cocktails. However, i'm not a whiskey, scotch, you know, that type of liquor....

 

The first whiff of Mad Sweeney was blow me away alcohol...to me almost in an acetone kind of way...you know if you open the bottle and take a big whiff of any alcohol and it stings your nose...yep....and then it moved into a real bourbon type of scent for me....with a touch of the campfire smoke of torture king. I think it's fabulous....it doesn't do very well with my skin chemistry in a way that would make me want to wear it as perfume...but i would actually looovvee to burn this one as a room scent, smoke a hookah, and yummm, yeah...nice. It's one i think we all want to own because it just speaks to the uniqueness of bpal and even the character of bilquis.

[Lit Chick]

I have sniffed a lot of special blends of BPAL, but this is something else entirely. It's perfection makes me want to cry. It's amazing, it's art. It's whiskey.

I do not get Scotch at all - it's smokey, yes, but not peaty. It's has that buttery richness of good Irish when it first goes on, and it's enough to makes me nearly woozy. It dries very quickly into a spicy wood smell, exactly what I hoped every other BPAL wood would be, but wasn't. It's the smell of seasoned logs flaring away in an otherwise dark room. Hot, fragant fire.

 

I don't know why, but this is incredibly comforting to me. It's my woobie BPAL, and I love it.

[Avery]

Okay, I love the smell of whisky. I knew that if there was a chance that I would be able to find a PERFUME that smelled like delicious, high-quality whisky, BPAL was the one place that I could count on. The only real question was my skin chemistry, which can be distinctly funky and ever so not normal.

 

To my delight (I actually made a surprise noise), when I opened the imp and smelled, as other reviewers have described, nose-hair singing hard whisky smell. It smells deliciously like top shelf whisky for several moments on my skin (I think my chemistry tends to burn right through the first phases of any given scent) and then starts to settle down into a whisky, smoky, spicy, woody deliciousness that I am COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH. Like the previous reviewer, Lit Chick, this is what I had hoped for from some of the woodier, smokier blends. I agree also with LitChick that this is hot, fragrant fire. An incredibly comforting scent that I find to be sexy and warm and enveloping and intriguing all at the same time. Normally a scent has to be with me for awhile before I proclaim love HG status and start waving the banner, but Mad Sweeney has me in his spell, and he´s without a doubt in my top 3 scents. I resisted physically running to order a bottle.

 

How awesome is that.

 

Thank you Beth, and thank you eviltemptressdq for getting me a decant all the way in Argentina!!

 

 

 

 

ETA: it´s evil Temptress,not mistress

Edited March 5, 2007 by Avery

[olympia301]

Wow. I was not expecting this! At first I got a nose hair singing alcohol smell. Wew! Don't smoke and uncork this one, you'll be sorry. It smells like real alcohol/volatile. Then, when it gets on your skin it does start to smell like whiskey but (like whiskey) it does not retain that smell for long it turns into very pure and chuchy incense! Real nice and long lasting. This is incense with the smoke still swirling around in it. Mmmm. One of the most true of burning incense smells ever. I love this one. Well well done, very creative, appealing and lovely and unexpected.

Edited March 6, 2007 by olympia301

[dart]

I'm a big fan of the wine scents but wasn't sure about this one when I first got it.

 

In the imp it does indeed smell like whisky. I pick up just a bit of something underneath, mayble the oak. There's almost a bubble gum note. Within a few minutes it turns into a very sweet smoke scent, incense or a very sweet campfire. I love that note. A definite winner.

[sd357]

Warning: Don't wear and drive...

 

On first sniff, well - remember everyone else's warnings about singed nose hairs? My husband was sitting nearby, and his dry comment of "sniff it, don't drink it" set me off in a fit of coughing, laughing, and managing not to spill the precious on a very startled cat. It's a marvelously blended scent, that while it's absolutely nothing I want to wear, I'll be keeping around just for the sheer uniqueness of it.

 

And now on to the reason I don't want to wear it. Sadly, on me, within a short while you end up with a mix of oak and sweaty-morning-after-a-drinking-binge scent. Ah, well. In any event, this is one to at least try if, for no other reason, than the fact that its a very self-assured scent that knows exactly what it is and makes no attempt at subtlety.

[Browneyes]

Imp: Okay, so I've been reading these reviews, and I'm going to be cautious... *opens imp* *snif snif* WOW!! This is the real deal!

Wet: I'm not much of a whiskey drinker, but this does actually smell pretty amazing!

Dry: It seems to dry really fast - probably all that alcohol evaporating On the drydown, the oak note comes out more, adding a great deal of complexity to the scent.

This is just an astounding creation - Art if you ask me - and I am so pleased to have an imp! It's so different and unique. I don't know how much I will actually wear it, even though I love it, so I'll have to see if I use up my imp, before I get a bottle.

[LiberAmoris]

Whiskey is something I love the smell but not the taste of. It reminds me of youthful nights spent at the bar, leaning into people that have a little bit of it hanging on their breath (in a good way!). So even though Mad Sweeney might not be the kind of blend I reach for every day, I'm glad to have it around because it smells just---JUST---like Irish whiskey and oak. And that makes me happy.

 

Straight out of the bottle it definitely is alcoholic. It hurts a little bit to sniff, just like the real thing. But after a few minutes, it's like caramelized oak on me, or like a summer fire when someone's burning loose branches. The whiskey's still there, but it's in the background. The oak note is really the star at this point.

 

This is the kind of BPAL blend that I think I would best appreciate on someone else's skin, as it doesn't quite feel like 'me'. But I would love to be close to someone who wears it well!

[Jilara]

In the bottle and wet, it's peat smoke, essence of Irish hearth in an alcohol base.

 

On drydown, you get less smoke and more whisky, but with something blacker and...oh, it's black bog mud. It's very earthy. It's like sitting by your still out in the bog, tending the fire and sipping something a bit more elegant than poteen.

 

Dry: its an old pub. There is good bog-laced whisky, and a peat fire going in the hearth. And very dark stout. (Don't think Guinness; it's too limiting.) I couldn't figure out what that sweet almost chocolate-y backnote was for a while, but it came out as Mad Sweeny dried. It was inky-dark stout, chewy-thick stout, sweet and with a head like cream. There's also something more like oak-paneled walls impregnated with generations of old pipe smoke, just at the edge where it nags you. An Irish pub that's been running since God was a Youngster.

 

Wow, something like this would make a fantastic room scent if you were doing an Irish music night!

[edenssixthday]

Mad Sweeney - Wow. This scent will put hair on your chest! It smells like top-shelf scotch: strong, harsh, acrid, and pungent. To me, scotch smells like something that would come out of a chemical factory, and I have to say, this is a dead-ringer for it (which means, I dislike it just like I dislike scotch immensely). Despite the scent of scotch in the vial, I decide to go ahead and give it a shot -- a teeny tiny test spot. It starts off with the same scent, but mellows out quite a bit into a more woody scent that's still got some kick, but it's not nearly as sharp around the edges. It's definitely not my type of scent. This one's going to a new home.

[Little Bird]

Confession time: I've never drank alcohol and have no clue what whiskey actually smells like.

 

In any case, Mad Sweeney (the bottle says Mad Sweeny?) smells incredibly strange to me and on my skin. In the bottle it smells exactly like rubbing alcohol. Sharp, pungent, chemical, horrible.

 

On my skin, the rubbing alcohol impression is crazy-strong for a few minutes, and then it settles down into something smoky that reminds me of beef jerky (no joke). Smoked jerky with a slightly spicy glaze. That sharp rubbing alcohol scent flitters in and out and sticks in my throat. There are also hints of something like dirty leather or dusty wood in the far drydown.

 

Beef jerky and rubbing alcohol . Mad Sweeney/Sweeny will go down as one of the strangest scents I've ever tried. I'm definitely not keeping my decant though, lol.

[this machine]

Wet - yep, it's expensive, beautiful whiskey.

 

Dry - sun-warmed expanses of old oak. a hair smokey, a hair sweet.

 

Absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

 

ETA - now i get it...it smells like a sauna. all that dry, hot wood. wow.

Edited March 15, 2007 by this machine

[Alchemy21599]

Holy Mother of Jameson's, man!

 

In the vial it is a ringer for Jameson's Irish Whiskey. I dabbed a wee bit on my wrist and it smelled as if I'd been on a two day bender. An interesting scent, but not what I would wear as perfume.

[Tesseljoan]

Oak-barrel aged whiskey, with a whiff of turf.

 

I have no doubt that this was hard to make, but it's effect is sweet and simple.

 

(and I will totally wear this as a perfume. heh.)

[PurringPulsar]

Mad Sweeney

 

In the imp: WHOA! *recoils* that’s some mighty strong whisky! It smells just like the real thing, so boozy it’s scary. Makes me wonder if my decant contains real whisky as opposed to a perfume oil.

Wet on skin: still strong whisky, but now I smell the oak and barrel woods.

Dry: whisky and woods! This is unnervingly realistic-it smells like real Scotch whisky, strong and incredibly alcoholic, I agree with most reviewers in that this isn’t a scent to wear for a driving test! But it’s surprisingly pleasant-under the piercing, almost nose-stinging scent of pure booze is a gorgeous wooden undertone, reminiscent of wood-smoke, aged barrels, and even an outdoorsy scent of oak, a scent which always makes me think of autumn at the park, and freshly cut oak furniture. This woodsy scent is very nice, almost comforting-but the booze is really overwhelming.

After a while: holy moly, the throw this has is crazy! It broadcasts it’s intensely boozy scent very far from the skin it was applied to. It does smell a little woodier now though, and loses it’s initial alcoholic hit to become a scent which strongly reminds me of old furniture and wooden floorboards. It reminds me of an old room, it smells aged and dusty and worn, but oddly familiar. I think it is reminding me of one of those old rooms in a stately home somewhere that I visited when I was younger. Brings to mind a whisky cellar in a past era, maybe in the 16th or 17th century, under a grand mansion.

The smell of historical abandoned cellars and attics, and fragrant wardrobes and dusty cupboards becomes the dominant scent as the whisky burns off and the wood is left behind. It’s a wonderfully aged wood scent and feels almost cosy. I also smell some bonfire woods coming through over time, the scent moves from worn wooden floors and furniture to autumnal burnt wood, a strong scent of smouldering oak barrels, but it’s not too smoky.

At the end though, the scent smoothes very nicely, with a creamy sweet scent coming out. I now smell a little bit of Baileys in here! And I do love me some Baileys. The aged oak and fragrant ancient woods scent is still there, but softened with the smoothness and sweetness of Irish cream. It turns a little buttery as it leaves, almost like a butter rum scent.

Verdict: woozy and woodsy, I’m impressed by the fact that Beth has really nailed the scent of whisky in this scent, it’s so authentic. At first, the whisky really bowls me over. It really does smell so boozy, I agree with all the ‘not suitable for driving with’ comments. And not only is it highly alcoholic, it is LOUD. This stuff wafts madly. However, underneath all that whisky is a strangely nostalgic, pleasant and rich wood, probably the barrels and oak, it becomes dominant when the whisky burns off, and something about it brings back a memory from childhood-I’m sure it was one of those old palaces or stately homes where they show how life was back in the old days in Tudor times or something, and I’m sure there was a room or two that had this smell. Not sure if it was the floorboards or the furniture…this is a dusty, aged, incredibly old scent, it’s almost like the wood holds memories from centuries ago. I really like this stage, can’t stop sniffing it. it does sweeten a little at the end as well. A scent both fascinating and fun, I’m glad I tried this out, but I don’t think I’d wear it much. I do like the ancient oaks scent I get at the end but the whisky is too overwhelming for me.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? No, the whisky is too much for me despite a pleasant woody drydown. Kudos to Beth for having captured whisky perfectly though!

If you like this, try: Isaac, Tavern of Hell, Miskatonic University, Hellcat, Grog

[Sealgair]

Mad Sweeney

in imp: peat-smoked oak whiskey. alcohol fumes, RIGHT UP THE NOSE!

on wet: 5:01 - scotch whiskey, alcohol fumes, sweet tobacco.

drydown: 5:11 - less fumey, more sweet, still pretty much whiskey/tobacco. Pipe tobacco though... actually... this reminds me of waiting in the library/salon for dinner in the Dungeon at Dalhousie Castle on our honeymoon in Scotland. All leather seats, wood paneling, pipesmoke and WHISKEY.

5:35 - even less alcohol fumes, sweet whiskey/leather/tobacco, even more reminding me of the library/salon in Dalhousie. I wish I'd taken a picture of it.

5:58 - I may have to try this on my LH, see what he thinks - it's quite a nummy smell.. I *want* a big bottle, but dunno if I *need* one... just hope I have money and time to make up my mind. I like it at any rate.

 

PS to the review: yes, we went to Scotland for our honeymoon, we stayed at a castle ("We're up to here with fuckin' castles"), and the fancy dining at this castle was in the dungeon. What pictures I have online are here: http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/Curr...moon/Dalhousie/ no pictures of the library, nor the dungeon.

[valentina]

I ordered Mad Sweeney for my spouse to test, and in the imp, I thought, uh-huh, we have ourselves some scotch! He tested it and it smelled like scotch, with a bit of spice, but mainly like scotch. But not deeply boozy, "aren't-I-a-drunk" smell -- more like the smell of really good scotch in a decanter.

 

I decided to test it. On initial drydown, I got the pure scotch whiskey whiff, but after I wore it a bit, it spiced up and took on a bit of sweetness -- I'd agree with others who have mentioned this, there may be some sweet tobacco lurking in this blend. It's not a great femme, sexy scent, but there's something about it that I LOVE. While the description of the scent is deceptively simple, there's really a lot going on in this scent as far as "layers," and I find it fascinating. I don't think (at least on me) that someone would smell it and immediately say that I smell like a distillery or a drunk. It's a fresher, spicer, cleaner scent with a boozy undertone, but I do not consider it to be over the top. I find it rather wearable. Not into the soberest of situations, but I think it would be great fun to wear during a casual night at a bar, when you want to smell nice, but not clash with the scents of a bar by wearing something floral or way sexy.

 

It's just a really cool scent, I enjoy it a lot.

[cuervosueno]

Holy Shit! this is straight up booze! In the imp it smells a bit like nail polish remover, but on the skin it smell like whiskey with a bit of something else, something slightly sweet and caramely, slightly nutty.

 

Do I like Scotch? No. Do I like Whiskey? No. Do I like Mad Sweeny?

 

You figure it out.