Beatnik,  photo by Daria Nelson

Drums tap out a stark rhythm to the jangle of cymbals.The coffee house looks like a thousand other such joints: formica tables and mismatched chairs, posters plastered hurriedly at oblique angles, random photos. A girl with the cat’s eye glasses and bangs as shiny black as a new LP leans back and drags on her Gauloise as the smell of motorcycle grease, sweat and new leather jacket seeps through the room from the biker boys in the back. This is the Beat Generation, and 19-year old Bob Dylan is about to play.

Michael McLure, Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsburg, photo via Las Vega Weekly

The Beats were one of the most influential literary and artistic groups of the twentieth century. Their rejection of materialism, nonconformist attitudes towards sex, drugs and everything mainstream, paved a path to the counterculture movements of the 1960s and influenced generations of artists, writers and musicians, including the young Bob Dylan. Beat Cafe, from Italian house Jusbox Perfumes, takes us to a Village Beat hangout redolent of leather jackets, booze and smoke and punctuated with spice.

Bob Dylan via Rolling Sone

Perfumer Dominique Ropion does not pull his punches with Jusbox Perfumes Beat Cafe. It packs a woody-green wallop at first, with a rough-hewn barrel of cedar, anisic, rooty vetiver and soapy coriander that practically careens out of the bottle. This is a big daddy of primeval, earthy green and hunting lodge smells that is almost hopelessly masculine (rather like the fraternity of the Beats) But almost immediately, ambery-medicinal cognac takes over, adding some welcome fruitiness to balance out the dryness of the opening and warm things up. Jusbox Perfumes Beat Cafe sticks two fingers in the air to conventional leather fragrances and hops on a Triumph motorcycle.

 Beatniks, 1950s, stock image

Smack in the middle, the oily, tarry smell of new leather vrooms in, labdanum on the back seat adding its characteristic sweaty-sweet tang, and pungent black pepper closing in at the rear. This leather is big, raw, petrolly, the kind that belongs to anti-heroes from dimestore thrillers.

Vikki Dougan photo by Earl Leaf, 1956

Rolling tobacco sidles up, its loamy richness recalling the earthy greenness of the opening. The leather and vetiver start a back-and-forth with the cognac and subtle sweetness from the resins. It’s almost a draw in the end: the raw swagger of vetiver and leather tempered by the refinement of the cognac. Coriander returns, and the resins soften the hardboiled notes just enough to make this wearable by Beatniks or Beatchicks. Black beret optional. Notes: Black pepper, coriander seed, fine cognac accord, cistus labdanum, black leather, tobacco, vetiver, cedarwood, benzoin balm.

Disclaimer: Sample of Jusbox Perfumes Beat Cafe generously provided by Europerfumes. My opinions are my own.

Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor  

Jusbox Perfumes Beat Cafe at Bloomingdales

Thanks to the generosity of Europerfumes the distributor of Jusbox Perfumes, we have a 78 ml Jusbox Perfumes Beat Cafe for one registered reader In the USA. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what strikes you about Beat Cafe based on Lauryn’s review. Are you familiar with Beatnik music? Draw closes 1/21/2019.

 Sr Contributor Marianne Butler’s introduction to the brand, which is now available in the USA at Bloomingdales and review of Jusbox No Rules is here

We announce the winners only on our website so like Cafleurebon and use our blog feed … or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.