Brielle's Avalon

Potpourris were more popular once upon a time and people who used them usually made their own. It’s not hard to make them yourself and the scents are not only customized to what you like, they’re more subtle and don’t hit your sinuses like the olfactory version of fingernails on a chalkboard.

Anything you like can go into a potpourri. Dried fruit, spent flower buds or petals from a bouquet, spices, herbs, tobacco, coffee beans, tea, pieces of leather, wood chips…really, anything you like to smell. My old favourite was Cavendish tobacco, coffee beans, orange slices (I let them dry on top of the potpourri), cinnamon sticks and a few cloves.

This is a recent potpourri that I just freshened with Canadian bourbon. I put the cinnamon sticks in a bowl, poured a shot of bourbon over them and let them soak for a bit before mixing in the tobacco. I just tossed the old rosemary sprigs and spent jonquils from February. This is 1/2 oz of Black Cavendish and 1/2oz of Nutty Irishman. It’s been out for a few months so the now-dry tobacco and cinnamon sticks will soak up the booze and be like new.

I love to go to tobacconist shops and sniff the different tobaccos. Some will always remind me of the one my Dad smoked in his pipes, or that my Grandfather, Great Grandfather, Uncle or even a few friends smoked in their pipes. If you don’t have those kinds of memories to spark you can find something that just smells delightful to you and start your own memories.

After a bit I turned the tobacco back into the pretty bowl I use and arranged the cinnamon in with a few fresh rosemary sprigs for a nice piney note, apple wedges for freshness and a few cloves just for fun spice. Yes, that’s a devil’s claw in there, too, just for fun. In the past I’ve even added leather and wood chips to potpourris. Whatever you have handy that you think smells good should work. If, for some reason it doesn’t work you can toss it into the compost and start over. Using things from your garden and kitchen makes it all fresher and healthier. You know where it all came from, it’s not synthetic scents from a laboratory somewhere, random plants treated with colours and preservatives or other little trinkets that might look pretty for bulk but you don’t even know what it is!

You can put your own trinket in amongst the vegetation to make it your own wonderfulness. This one I just freshened looks pretty alright as it is but when it was plainer I could have added a small brass figurine, piece of old costume jewelry, small ceramic or even plastic things that meant something to me or reminded me of something. Potpourri is an art and you can make of it whatever delights you.