Le Trou 19 du Phare Eau de Parfum

This one comes from a golf rivalry in Biarritz. Albert Fouquet and his friends played a yearly match at Le Phare, and the "19th hole" that followed had rules: the losing team paid for dinner, then jumped into the sea fully clothed and walked into the hotel dripping to ask for their room keys. A friend once handed Albert a bouquet of homegrown geraniums, and this perfume is what he made from it.

It opens with black pepper and frozen lemon, moves into cinnamon and black leather, and dries down to vetiver, patchouli, and cedar. Spicy and woody with a little swagger, and nothing sweet about it. A good one for anyone who thinks they don't like perfume.

As Eight & Bob tells it, a young JFK met a Frenchman wearing a scent he had made on the Riviera and later asked for eight bottles for his friends and one for his brother Bob. During World War II, the last shipments were hidden inside hollowed-out books to keep them from the Nazis. We love the scents just as much as the story.

Read the Eight & Bob story