DESCRIPTION
This is, quite simply, one of the rarest oud profiles you will ever encounter: a distillation from Aquilaria yunnanensis, a species of agarwood found only in its native province. In its homeland, a genuine distillation of this wood hasn’t surfaced in over a decade. On the rare occasions it does, it is often from wood sourced from other provinces, or even other countries, then distilled in the Laotian style and passed off as the real thing.
Stored for decades in the royal storehouses of Salalah, Oman, there sat two flacons of this extraordinary oil, believed to date back to the early 1990s. What is known is that it reached the Sultan via Singapore, meaning it was not produced in his private distilleries, and therefore carries none of the typical Malay, Maroke, or Burmese vintage royal DNA. Instead, it stands entirely apart: a different league, a different sport altogether.
The opening is one of the most challenging profiles you will ever encounter: aggressive musk deer, primal ambergris, and a barnyard oomph that hits like a punch to the senses. It’s the kind of scent that makes you pause before it ever touches skin, knowing there’s no turning back once it does. Yet it’s intoxicating - addictive even. Open the cap, close the cap. Open it again. Inhale. Close. Repeat. An olfactory compulsion that keeps calling you back, over and over.
Then, the 'magic'. As the animalic top notes fade, the drydown reveals itself, and if the opening tested your limits, the heart and base will reward you. Bright flickers of orange peel mingle with the richness of dark cherries and the allure of Cuban cigars, all wrapped in the depth that only two decades of careful aging can produce. The closest profile? Perhaps the Sultan's vintage Laos, unsurprising given Yunnan’s proximity to the region, yet even that falls short. Imagine our HM Royal Hindi, with its rum-like opulence, macerated in the finest Tibetan musk grains, and you begin to understand the profile of HM Royal Yunnan.
This one is for the collectors. It’s entirely possible that wild Yunnan oud will never be seen again. You’ve heard the phrase before, “this is an heirloom,” but in this case, it’s literal. An oud from this region is unlikely to surface again in our lifetime
