Gin Fizz
Note Profile
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
Gin Fizz smells mostly of lemon, fresh and zesty rather than of juniper. A dry, herbal juniper-berry note sits underneath, the gin itself. Behind that is a faint boozy warmth, like spirit fading into a musky wood base. The soda water gives it a prickling, slightly soapy aldehyde lift, almost fizzy and airy. A sharp, tart sourness comes from the fresh lemon juice, cut with a thin green edge of galbanum. A thread of sugar syrup runs underneath, and the carbonation itself reads cold and faintly mineral, like stone rather than water.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
ScentArt
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.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Gin Fizz
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Gin Fizz appears prominently.
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