Nutmeg
Warm, dry, slightly sweet spice with a woody, peppery edge.
You may know it from Freshly grated nutmeg in eggnog or pumpkin pie
Where it comes from
Steam-distilled from the seeds of the nutmeg tree.
Worth knowing
It smells spicier and woodier than the powdered kitchen spice.
About nutmeg
One fruit gives two spices. The tree, Myristica fragrans, is an evergreen, and its seed is nutmeg while the reddish covering around the seed, the aril, is mace. Mace is described as the more delicate of the two, nutmeg as slightly sweeter. The tree is native only to the Banda Islands, a chain about 250 miles off the eastern coast of Indonesia.
The spice was worth more by weight than gold, and on the Bandas the Dutch massacred traditional leaders, killed and expelled thousands of others, and replaced them with slaves and convicts. Elsewhere, Grenada was once second only to Indonesia in global output. Hurricane Ivan later cost it 90% of its nutmeg trees.
The oil is made by steam or steam-and-water distillation of ground, dried nutmegs, and the fixed oil, a butter, is often removed beforehand to improve the yield. Scentspiracy describes the result as light and fresh at first, with a distinctly terpenic top, then a rich, sweet-spicy, warm body with a woody undertone. ScenTree files the odour under spicy, cool spices, dry woods and earthy, and uses the oil as a spicy note modifier. It also says East Indian oil is better soluble in ethanol and richer than West Indian oil.
Cafleurebon suggests Jo Malone Nutmeg & Ginger, from 1990, may have been one of the first commercial perfumes built around nutmeg.
An EFSA assessment classes the oil as a category 1B carcinogen and lists safrole at 2.30%, elemicin at 0.40%, methyleugenol at 0.33% and myristicin up to 12% in the oil it assessed. ScenTree states the oil is not restricted in IFRA's 51st amendment, and that producers sell versions without safrole and methyl eugenol.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Nutmeg in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Nutmeg most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Nutmeg
Fragrances that list it in their notes, most-rated first.
Houses that use it most
Ranked by how many of their well-known fragrances list Nutmeg.