#anice

Mom grew anise and fennel in her garden, both for their seed umbels and for their cool, juicy bulbs, which appeared on the dinner table sliced raw in salads and sauteed over pasta. As for licorice, she kept boxes of Pearsons Licorice Nips stashed in every conceivable drawer and cabinet, compulsively buying new boxes each time she hit the grocery store. When Nestle absorbed the Pearsons brand and discontinued the licorice flavor, she was devastated -- but had at least a year's worth of Nips squirreled away for consolation.

Personally, as a child I detested the taste of licorice. Nips, Allsorts, Good'n'Plenties, Callard & Bowsers-- all were lost on me. (I have since reassessed these flavors with blissful results) . What I never denied was my love of the scent of licorice, anise, and fennel. I shamelessly kyped pinches of crunchy aniseed from my mother's spice rack to sniff, along with springerle at Christmas and anise biscotti any old time. In time, I would make friends with ouzo, pastis, and Sambuca. (I never drink straight anisette, owing to its reputation as a "spirit for spirits". For many years, I always kept a glass of anisette on my home altar in tribute to whatever entities might stray past.)

In my current sample library (and future wishlist), there's 1725 Casanova (Histoires de Parfums), Aimez-Moi (Caron), Anisia Bella and Après L'Ondée (Guerlain), Douce Amère (Serge Lutens), Drôle de Rose (L'Artisan Parfumeur), the great L'Heure Bleue (Guerlain), Le Troisème Homme (Caron), and Tea for Two (L'Artisan Parfumeur). And then there's Anice, an elegant fragrance by Italian design house Etro.

Anice is exactly as advertised: anise pure and simple, with a touch of musk to anchor and extend what is naturally a volatile and evaporative essence. Like a classic Hollywood couple who captures the world's imagination with their decades-long romance, anise and musk happen to be one of those "meant-to-be" matches that make so much sense once you smell them together that afterward it's hard to imagine them apart. They turned in some quiet work in Casanova 1725, but in Anice, they yank that sense of scholarly mystery out into the sunlight and slap some color into its pale cheeks.

But let's distribute the credit a bit: Anice owes the sum of its effect to its supporting cast, a skillful arrangement of many and varied voices. I enjoy the caraway and dill seed notes (the latter being exempt from my horror of dill in perfumes, which applies only to the foliage). I also admire the warm and dusty rasped-rosewood heart. Iris performs its duties shyly but well, as usual, and the vanilla used here does not try to insert itself between you and the object of your infatuation: that stunning anise, which leaves bare skin smelling as if one has been dried by the sun and wind after a dip in the salty ocean.

The drawbacks? In Anice, I detect a hint of inflexibility in its optimism, of hardness in its smile. Wearing it, I feel cajoled into cheerfulness, talked into a sense of ease that may or may not be genuine. If I may invoke the spectre of synaesthesia, I'll say that Anice feels like a garment made out of purple-dyed suede. It possesses the buttery, supple softness I expect in suede, only in a color never found in nature, which takes me slightly aback. Its very frivolity reminds me of Columbine in Edna St. Vincent Millay's Aria da Capo, trilling "A macaroon, I cannot LIVE without a macaroon!" She's an odd mixture of charm and hollow artifice; you're entranced by her-- but you wouldn't trust her as far as you could throw her.

Still, so long as the overall effect is pleasing, I am willing to refrain from asking this beauty too many questions. Instead I'd say: Try it. It's fun. What more does anyone need?