CKR

Cultivated Kynam Resinoid Oil

Our last few releases have included a number of organic Oudh Oils with the aim of showcasing the potential of organic oudhs now in comparison to the past – and as many of you have noted the results are amazing. Our expertise coupled with good-quality organic Oudh has produced some breathtaking oils over the years, even winning awards for the best Organic Oudh oil.

However, whilst we have released a number of Organic Oils, we had not released many Organic woods – the reason being many Organic woods just don’t deal well with or shine with heat, particularly charcoal heat. But…then came along cultivated kynam (CK). Our CK wood does incredibly well on low heat, A couple-days-incredibly-well!! steadily releasing euphoric vanilla and cinnamon waves. This has piqued the interest of many a connoisseur; of course there’s the element of the beauty of smell aspect, but as important is how long a small sliver lasts on the heater. I have literally had it go for a number of days, and as long as you get the temperature right, you don’t get charred notes either. The other area of interest is how different our cultivated kynam is compared to all the others on the market. If you haven’t yet tried them, I recommend you do, even if only 5grams.

Many of you and myself included have wondered about an oil from the CK wood. Yep another crazy thought, right? Challenges like these excite me, not to just distil an oil, but something more unique, more bespoke and artistic, and in this instance to capture the kodo incense experience of our cultivated kynam chips. But before we get into the oil, let us take a look at what cultivated kynam is all about.

As part of our initiative into Organic Oudh we have been keeping a close eye on the development of Cultivated Kynam and have our preferred specialists in China who we regularly sample and study their progress. We also provide this cultivator with advice and consultation on how to grow the most premium CK. This grower has been working with us closely for ten years and are one of the oldest cultivators of Kynam in China, if not the oldest. We opted to work closely with these growers as they were keen to learn from our experience which we had developed working with Organic Oudh plantations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Australia.

With their farm at a location that housed a large number of wild kynam trees in the bygone years, with some of ‘mother’ trees still standing among the cultivated trees. Interestingly, many of the cultivated trees are pruning from the mother tree. This to us, was very unique because of two aspects, the botanical gene pool and the environment of growth of previous wild trees. In addition, they do not use any chemicals- not even for the initiation of the trees defence – rather they employ hot rods or nails in place of chemicals.

That is a little education about the background and process… Cultivated Kynam Resinoid – CKR is a resinoid-oil distilled two ways by Al Shareef from Old harvest bespoke cultivated kynam, hand selected for Al Shareef by the grower. When I decided to distil these chips, I wanted to capture the kodo sessions of these pieces in a bottle, that was the aim. Hence why I had to employ two different steps, first hydro-distillation to capture all the lighter notes, then extraction using pure none denatured alcohol, evaporating the alcohol and aging it for close to 12 months. The final product is a thick oil with resin running through it. This is a resinoid-oil , that scent is the closest aroma you will get to heating the CK pieces on low kodo methodology.

When you swipe CKR on your wrist, and I recommend you compare this with the actual wood, there are multiple layers and levels to this amazing oil. Starting off with a delicate vanilla, floral, earthy, and slightly bitter scent the journey begins; oudhy resin, touch of labdanum, aniseed, lovely aged leather, then comes along a touch of apple peel with some cinnamon coupled with a beautiful dark powdery resinous note, with a touch of cool menthol, before it settles to a wonderful long lasting flow of resinous vanilla note that will literally go for hours.