You know, one of the best parties I ever went to, I got there about 10 PM, we went all night, and then at 8 AM, with a few diehards still carousing, the hosts wheeled out another keg and a tray of sushi. It was a real boss move. Bear with me, I’ll circle back to this in a bit.

I’m really at a loss reading the other reviews. Well, half of them. This stuff must be especially dependent on body chemistry, or something. Or maybe I’ve gone anosmic. But I can tell I desperately need a shower, so, that’s probably not it.

Yes, I get some notes of a dry, deserty, spicy middle-eastern scent. Buried almost imperceptibly under yet another thick, weird, ineffable burned cotton candy or bubblegum accord, an oily sweetness I can’t understand why anyone would ever want to smell like. I’m reliving the trauma of my previous A*Men sample experience (aka “Bad Night on the Midway”) except, instead of being afraid a clown is sneaking up from behind the cotton candy machines to thwack me with a frying pan, this time it smells like a fortune teller.

But, a small number of reviews clearly mention the sugary smell, so I know I didn’t imagine it, yet absolutely nobody else does, when it’s all I smell. 5% nice, dry spice (patchouli?) smothered to death under 95% spun sugar. Maybe after a few hours the balance is 30%/70%. It’s still mostly sweet.

How this all reads as “very masculine” to anyone is beyond me. Must be a cultural thing that I was never exposed to, or something. Unless your masculine ideal is Bazooka Joe. (Which, ok, I guess that could be a thing.)

Maybe 8 or 10 hours later—ok, impressive under any circumstances—I do catch whiffs off something inoffensively woody when I move. So the fabled longevity is there, and alright, well… But it shouldn’t take 8 hours to start to smell inoffensive, or, if it does take that long… let’s just say… it ought to come with another keg and a tray of sushi. This ain’t that. It’s nice enough, but that’s all.

And, ack, I just got another whiff of bubblegum. Come on, man, leave me alone.

How it sells for the price it does is an even bigger mystery. I wouldn’t buy it, period, because I don’t think much of the smell, but I can’t believe anybody can’t find a better use for that much money than smelling like this. You can buy a decent vintage MIM Standard Stratocaster for the cost of a bottle of this juice, and I’ll tell you what, the Stratocaster lasts longer, and does a more effective job of annoying the neighbors.