Cola de Mono

[zankoku_zen]

A traditional Chilean holiday beverage: strong fresh-brewed coffee, steamed milk, sugar, aguardiente, cinnamon, clove, and vanilla bean.    

[Sangria2]

Spicy, strong, sweet coffee.  It's definitely on the strong side, with a bit of a bitter note that works well.  The wear length isn't super long though, after a couple hours it was gone.  Still very pretty!  Also if anyone is worried about an anise smell in the aguardiente, I didn't get that at all.

[starbrow]

Unf. This is kind of what I want A-Wassailing to smell like. Coffee is but one of many notes in here, mulled into a single warm, bracing mug, spiced perfectly and thawing out the winter's chill from the inside out. Without knowing the notes, I wouldn't necessarily have assumed that coffee was even in here. It's definitely a muted backdrop for the other superstar notes to play off of.

 

What made me hold off on blind-bottling Cola was actually the aguardiente. I've tasted it before and wasn't a fan of the black licorice flavor it gave off. Happily, I discovered that this traditional South American liquor plays very nicely in the blend, without any licorice overtones. What it DOES remind me of is baking with anise and citrus! So picture a lemon poppyseed muffin with anise and clove, spicy and sweet and wheaty. That's what I get from a good slather of Cola de Mono, a drink that makes me think MMMM orange anise-seed muffin! It must be the milk/sugar/vanilla bean (traditional muffin ingredients) combined with the spices (is my nose just inserting orange in there like a spiced orange?) and the anise of the aguardiente (which also might have fruit in it). 

 

All that to say, it's delicious, it's the good kind of baking-anise, and a really unusual hot drink to indulge in, if you are already inundated in hot cocoa, coffee, cider, and tea. 

 

(For reference, since I'm over at my Colombian in-laws' house, right this moment I'm having some long-opened aguardiente which they all agree has lost a lot of its flavor...but it still is quite licorice-y! So if you've ever tried it and thought that too, you still may enjoy Cola de Mono )

Edited December 26, 2019 by starbrow

[Casablanca]

Oh, this one's interesting.

 

Strong coffee heavily spiced, smoothed with milk, and sweetened with sugary vanilla. 

 

That sounds straightforward, but the aguardiente must be adding a twist, because I'm picking up an anise that's bringing a lot of "interesting" to the spices -- in a good way. This spice blend as a whole actually makes me think of allspice.

 

As Cola dries on me, it loses its coffee and grows a black-peppery quality to its spice. Still cinnamon, clove, and a little anise, but my chemistry is bringing out some black pepper with it.

 

After a while, this is mainly a spice blend on me, my skin having drunk the other notes.

[zankoku_zen]

Aguardiente, anise, cinnamon, coffee, and a whiff of other spices. I am really amping up the aguardiente and spices in this, and the coffee is in the background. So boozy coffee. Good throw and wear length.

[Soupy Twist]

Coffee candy. Sweet, milky, cinnamon-dusted, coffee-flavored hard candy. A gorgeous scent.

[doomsday_disco]

Smelling this in the vial, I was surprised that it was oddly bright? I looked up aguardiente and saw that it is be a generic term for some alcoholic beverages and it could be fruit-based. Well, that explained the brightness and the orange that I got from it once I applied this to my skin.

 

Cola de Mono is mostly the orange-y aguardiente on me backed by some coffee, sugar, and spices. At first, the combination is oddly sort of appealing, but then it goes through this funky phase before mostly becoming a sugar-dominant scent on me with touches of the other notes.

 

I would have kept the decant around if it weren't for that funky middle phase, but alas.

Edited January 23, 2020 by doomsday_disco

[Lucchesa]

I'm not familiar with aguardiente but am very fond of Strega and other anise liqueurs and was hoping for a lot of anise from this.  I didn't get it, but I still like this quite a bit.  It starts out really boozy, with what smells to me more like a coffee bean note than a brewed coffee one. The milk note behaves and doesn't turn on my skin.  Cola de Mono settles into boozy coffee on me, agreeably spiced and with a dash of vanilla, and the coffee note hangs around a lot longer than it does in several of the Kaffeeklatsch scents.  I would love to drink this, but I'm enjoying wearing it too.  

[WinterSong]

On me, there isn't even a subtle hint of coffee. I get a sweet, creamy licorice orange with just a hint of sugar and milk. It isn't the coffee scent I was hoping for, but it's absolutely delightful! Very pretty. I need a full bottle and will cherish my decant.

[Okupsidedown]

I bought this blind in a gourmand "gimme" frenzy, and regretted my life choices. So, without even a skin test, I put this away until now.

 

I'M SO GLAD I DID!

 

In the bottle, it's very true to the description. However, immediately upon application, I Starbrow's experience with citrus muffin. But then!! It dries down into this amazing perfume. And I mean perfume, it's not gourmand at all any more. It's a lush, rich, creamy, and lightly spiced perfume.

 

You know how a lot of gourmands are great at first, but after a while you wish they'd calm their tits? This one does!! Into a gorgeous creature. I love it!

[forspecial_plate]

I don't wear a lot of coffee scents but I do enjoy some of them and I like this one.  

 

The coffee note isn't strong on my skin.  I'm getting a lot of warm spices, a lot of powdered sugar, and a little coffee.  This really reminds me of those round powdered sugar cookies that you find around Christmas time.  It really smells specifically like powdered sugar to me for whatever reason.  Also I think I'm picking up on some anise from the guardiente (I had to look it up). 

 

The clove and cinnamon don't stand out strongly either, it's just a general warm spicy feeling.