Sesame

Cocoa shell is the unusual one here. Where cocoa absolute tends to read gourmand, sweet and dessert-adjacent, the shell behaves differently. McCurtin uses the shell instead of the bean, which means you get the dry, papery, faintly bitter edge of cacao without the confectionery pull. The material carries its own quiet intensity: a little ashy, a little nutty, something that recalls raw cacao husks more than any chocolate bar. Oak CO2 sits beside it in the core, extracted in a way that preserves the greener, more luminous facets of oak wood.

The evolution

The aldehydes arrive first, and they announce themselves clearly. There is a clean, slightly metallic brightness at the top, something that feels cold-laundered, like stepping into a room where the curtains just opened. The effect is crisp without feeling sharp, transparent without feeling empty, and it sets the entire register for what follows. The cocoa shell enters next, and it does not enter sweet. It arrives dry, faintly ashy, with something almost nutty underneath, and it carries a quiet intensity that reads more like raw cacao husk than any dessert. You notice the papery, faintly bitter quality immediately, and it gives the composition a grounded center that nothing in the opening promised. The oak CO2 settles in alongside the cocoa, and this is where the fragrance finds its real character.