Gin Fizz

Note Profile

Prepared

About

Gin fizz is the smell of the cocktail: gin, fresh lemon juice and sugar syrup shaken with ice and topped with soda water. Lemon leads, not juniper. The carbonation gives it a prickling, slightly soapy lift that perfumers reach for aldehydes to reproduce. Underneath sits the botanical dryness of the spirit and a thin thread of sugar.

Scent Profile

Citrus is the note and every source puts it first. Wikipedia makes an acidic juice one of the two defining features of the whole fizz family, Lubin stacks bergamot, Sicilian lemon and Messina mandarin across the top, and a Parfumo reviewer opens with a 'bracing blast of juniper and zesty lemon'. Aromatic_herbal is the gin half, carried by juniper berry, which the same reviewer calls the most notable of the florals and another complains there is not enough of. Boozy is the spirit itself, present in the recipe and in the 'musky-woody baseline' reviewers use to describe what the alcohol leaves behind. Aldehydic and aquatic_ozonic are both the soda water. One review names 'a generous use of aldehydes' outright and others reach for 'effervescent', 'fizzy' and 'slightly soapy, fresh watery'. Sour is the fresh lemon juice, described as 'tart' and as 'a bitter fizz', and it is what separates the drink from a sweetened lemon note. Green is galbanum, named in Lubin's heart and picked up by reviewers as 'tart galbanum' and 'fruity green'. Sweet_vanillic is the simple syrup, which one reviewer reduces to 'a little sweetness'. Mineral is the carbonated water reading as cold and stony rather than wet.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeTop · ~2h lasting

Family Fresh & Citrus, Green & Aromatic, Sweet & Gourmand, Fruity

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

A prepared drink, not a raw material. Nothing is distilled from a gin fizz and no supplier sells the accord. Wikipedia gives the recipe as 5 cl gin, 3 cl fresh lemon juice, 1 cl simple syrup and a splash of soda water, shaken with ice and topped with the soda at the end. The fizz family it belongs to is defined by exactly two things added to a sour: an acidic juice and carbonated water. Perfumery reaches the note by construction. Lubin's 1955 Gin Fizz builds it from bergamot, Sicilian lemon, Messina mandarin and juniper berry over iris, galbanum and orange blossom, with oakmoss and white musk in the base.

Usage in Perfumery

A top-note accord used to open a fragrance with something brighter and drier than plain lemon. The juniper and the carbonation stop it reading as lemonade. It sits well over musks, oakmoss and iris, which is how Lubin anchored it and how five brands on Parfumo have used the term since. Use it where a citrus opening needs a bitter, effervescent edge rather than a sweet one.