I love Bay Rum aftershave more than any other so I was interested in making some of my own. To that end, I obtained all the supplies needed and got a couple ounces of West Indies Bay Essential Oil. On taking my first whiff, I find that Captain's Choice Bay Rum and Pinaud's Virgin Island Bay Rum both capture the aroma of the Bay oil very well. The essential oil smells strongly of cloves with a bit of a peppery cinnamon under tone. It has a very spicy aroma that reminds me of pumpkin pie spices. Once I am able to go out to purchase the rum, I will begin making my own Bay Rum for testing, but as nearly as I can tell, the commercial scents out there already capture the true flavor of Bay oil.
West Indies Bay Essential Oil Aroma. Now I Know
- Thread starter Stevew443
- Start date
I've been curious to try making some myself. I'm surprised that the bay oil alone has clove notes, I never would have thought or guessed that. I prefer the Captain's Choice since he doesn't add any clove, even though some insist they smell clove in it. Guess that explains where the clove note they smell comes from then. lol
Only... I don't smell any clove at all in bay oil. Or Captain's Choice. Or Superior 70 (which is just bay an alcohol).
The name is misleading, it's not the same as bay laurel that people use for cooking. It's actually a variety of allspice. go smell some allspice and it smells like bay rum...
The confusion is because many plants are called "bay" which just means berry, from Old French baie (12c.) "berry, seed," so a lot of shrubs and trees end up being called bay but are not related.
Bay rum traditionally uses a version of the by leaf that is different from the cooking one for sure, they use the west indies bay tree, but from what I could see while digging it wasn't related to anything allspice. Lots of bay rums use allspice as a spice component, however.
The genus pimenta racemosa is the west indies bay...pimenta is the genus of allspice trees. The cooking allspice berries most often come from pimenta dioica. Its called allspice because it seemed like a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, which is how most people describe bay rum
I'm surprised that you compare pure bay oil to clubman bay rum since they add lots if other stuff including cinnamon to their much. Superior 70, and Master both use only bay oil for their scent.
For me, Pinaud's Virgin Island Bay Rum smells horrible. I gave the stuff away.
Bigelow's is the bomb. Trumpers smells great too. BTW, there are a few recipes to be found on B&B if you do a search.
Bigelow's is the bomb. Trumpers smells great too. BTW, there are a few recipes to be found on B&B if you do a search.
This is really interesting. This is why people fairly consistently smell "clove" when there's no clove in the ingredients, I suppose. To me clove is very distinctive, but I get it's related to allspice in scent. Very interesting post.Quintar said:
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