The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Rum+ landed in 2022, composed by Arturetto Landi as part of Alex+'s systematically titled lineup, where every fragrance carries a '+' in its name. The name is the promise: rum, in all its spirit-soaked associations, warmed by fruit and grounded in leather. Dried fruits and cherry spike the opening like the first pour, sweet and assertive from the first breath. The heart leans into actual rum and vanilla, not the idea of them. The composition commits fully to that rum-vanilla axis, letting the boozy warmth settle into something syrupy and rich on skin. Then the base pulls toward something older, smokier, almost devotional, with leather, cocoa, and oud turning the warmth into something that hangs in the air like a memory of a room nobody wants to leave.
What makes Rum+ interesting is the structural honesty of its sweetness. The cherry and dried fruits open loud, the rum-vanilla heart commits fully to the spirit's boozy warmth, and the base anchors everything in materials that age well on skin, cocoa, oud, and leather. That last layer does the heavy lifting, giving the composition its architecture and its afterburn. The cherry arrives with a cordial thickness, almost syrupy, while the dried fruits add a chewy, dense sweetness underneath.
The evolution
The first fifteen minutes are the loudest. Cherry and dried fruits arrive first, almost candied, riding a wave of dark fruit sweetness that reads more like a cordial than a perfume. The rum joins quickly, and it joins unapologetically. There's no polite suggestion of alcohol here. This is the smell of a glass poured neat, warming in your hand. For the first hour, the composition sits in a boozy-sweet register, vanilla thickening underneath while the fruit holds the surface. Around the two-hour mark, something shifts. The fruit recedes, the vanilla rounds out, and the leather steps forward. Not suede. Not fresh leather. The leather of a chair that's been sat in, of a coat that's been worn through, of a book that's been handled often. The cocoa arrives alongside it, dark and slightly bitter, pulling the sweetness back toward something grown-up. By hour four, you're in the base.
Cultural impact
Rum+ by Alex+ sits at the intersection of gourmand comfort and boozy provocation, leaning into a dried fruit and cherry accord that carries deep festive resonance. That pairing taps into a long memory of liqueurs, mulled wines, and holiday desserts, so the scent reads as familiar even when the composition pushes into something darker or more resinous than a typical fruit-forward release. The boozy warmth and the fruit's sticky sweetness speak to anyone who has ever held a glass of something spiced by a fire.
