Sumba Imperial 2022 : Insane Artisan Pure Indonesian Sandalwood Oil

Jungle : Sumba Island : Indonesia
Class : Wild Red and Black Meat Heart- and Root Wood
Distillation : Hybrid Vacuum Distillation



So I've been working on a new project and setting up some new pots and equipment. There's a little bit of backstory ...

Back before all the shenanigans that started in March of 2020, I had been working with an Indonesian partner who was more or less employed by a guy in Qatar. As the pandemic started and things ground to a halt - this employer of his more or less left him to starve. So I started putting him to work buying woods and such. The Indo Coffees and Melipona Honeys in the shop, btw, came out of our efforts of helping both him, as well as his community of friends and colleagues who were all badly impacted by the very severe lockdowns in Indonesia. I've really enjoyed working with this guy, and so over the pandemic, he became my employee and we've been doing a lot of great work together. Team Rising Phoenix continues to grow. 💪🏼

At some point, he introduced me to an local Indonesian distiller friend - a guy who was part-time employed by different Gulf operation, who started doing some custom distillations for me on the side. I liked the work he was doing for me, and so these odd jobs started becoming auditions.

Tanjung Selor 2021, Takengon Aceh 2020, Sorong 2022 - all distillations currently in the shop that we ran together as part of this trial run, with a few more in pocket that'll make it in to the shop at some point. These oils have so far been a big hit with fantastic feedback. If you haven't checked them out yet - I highly recommend taking a closer look.

We 3 have worked well together and they've both done some really great work for me - so I decided to buy some even better vacuum distillation equipment (that in this case I would own, as he was initially working part-time for a Gulf operation and distilling for me on the side - and is now full-time producing for me on my equipment), and bring him on to the team as a full-time employee.

So now we have some exceptional equipment and a dedicated team in Indonesia that are officially part of Rising Phoenix. Expect even better and more interesting things to continue coming ... Speaking of which :

After breaking in the new equipment with a few test runs - I decided to run an insane batch of Sandalwood as our first real initial run.



THE SCENT



We had gotten our hands on some very premium Red and Black meat odds and ends, working directly with some old collectors in Sumba - and island in the East Nusa chain, not far from Bali, Lombok East and West Nusa - and Timor a little further East.

Now mind you, the new units we have are vacuum distillation units - so they will pick up some notes that are usually lost in more standard boilers. We ran a few test runs to ensure there were no new still notes before running our first full run, Kupang Imperial - and boy, what we got was some mind-buzzing Sandalwood oil! 🤯

Which brings us to our followup Sandalwood oil here, Sumba Imperial. 🥰💪🏼

You know how you hear about how Indonesian Sandalwood Oils used to be every bit as good, if not better, than Mysore Sandalwood Oils? These Sandalwood oils are probably THE Oudiest, New-Geniest smelling batches of Sandalwood Oils I've run, and we all know I've run quite a few batches of Sandalwood! 😉👍🏼

The material we used is from very old trees, cut from logs harvested decades ago. This was not an inexpensive batch to make - but I think you'll be quite pleased at what you get for the price.

I'm not quite sure how to explain the scent, to be honest. New Gen Oudy Sandalwood? Bodhisattva Sandalwood? Sandalwood on Steroids? The oil was so mind-buzzing that it was almost giving my two guys a headache high during the run!

My lack of words to adequately describe the insanity aside - I think this may be one of the best and most unique Sandalwood oils in our collection. Very different from our exceptional (sold out) TSO 1, or our existing 2018 batch of Kota Kupang (an excellent oil that's been aging very nicely and also worth checking out, btw). If you like Kota Kupang - or were lucky to grab a bottle of the 2022 Kupang Imperial - I'm positive Sumba Imperial will hit your Sandalwood sweet spot!

**I'm only going to offer 20 full bottles of this in an upgraded boxed glass-stick bottle, which I'll be labeling 1/20, 2/20 ... 20/20.

This is a special oil, and I thought the packaging premium was well suited for this very unique oil. Rest assured, this is one full-bottle blind buy that you don't want to miss.

Quantity is very limited - grab some while ya can !

Materials: Red and Black Meat Sandalwood OIl,Kupang Sandalwood Oil,Indonesian Sandalwood Oil,Timor Sandalwood Oil