If Vietnam has kinam and Bhutan grows muana, here’s a taste of Cambodia’s nigami.
You’ve heard of, perhaps even smelled, Koh Kong’s raw red, ripe fruit oud, contrasted with Pursat’s golden, ever-so-bitter sweetness.
Now, imagine if you could marry that almost-camphoric raw rouge of old school Koh Kong to Pursat’s legendary semi-sweet dryness.
I call it the nigami chord. An olde Hainan-like bitterness, gently medicinal, with a narcotic overtone evoked not just by the synthesis of agarwood from these immortal jungles, but also the way you coax such caliber resin out of old aquilarias and into your bottle of King Kambodi.
Behind the scenes, the distillation involved a newly built hydro setup. Not ‘pots’ – because they’re custom, open-ended casks which resemble steam extraction units far more than the shotgun pot picture you probably have in mind now.
We put together custom-designed casks, condensers, insulators, and more, in the heart of Cambodia’s wilderness to extract these wild Pursat and Koh Kong harvests and bring you an artisanal agarwood cocktail that imports the most prized vintage Cambodis, adds a high-res filter, and adjusts the color hues to let you experience an enhanced Cambodian where nigami oozes out in full HD.
It’s not just that you get a delectable Koh Kong/Pursat hybrid juiced in our custom-built distillery. There’s even more to it…
Zesty like granny green apples tempered by a vanillic/cinnamon powderiness you’d expect to only smell in king Malinau oud oils—but here it is.
A touch sour, as if grapes and berries are being prepped for jam, before you add the sugar. This juicy sour twang, in pure oud form, can be totally addicting. So replete, you’ll smell phantom wafts which echo the same sedative, kinamic tone present in superior Hainan and Pusong ouds.
The aroma isn’t apricoty or tinged with peach. It’s not simply orange, yellow, or even all red. It’s a Pollock painted with the ruhs of Koh Kong and Pursat on a canvas of Kambodi No 1.
And here comes the twist…
King Kambodi isn’t just a rare terroir hybrid. To imbue the juicy sour apple sweetness with that Malinau-like cinnamon topping, we built a separate steam distillation unit running parallel to our custom-built hydro system. (To my knowledge, this is the first steam system in Cambodia’s long, long distillation history.)
And to elicit the most authentic vintage Cambodian nigami profile, between the bespoke systems you’ve got the ground Pursat and Koh Kong crassnas bubbling away in both fresh waterfall and pure well water—the two purest sources to use if you want to steep your precious agarwood in the most mineral-rich H2O Cambodia has to offer.
In a nutshell, King Kambodi is easily among the most robust, satisfying, full-spectrum Cambodian ouds you could hope to wear. Enjoy!
Featured Testimonials…
King Kambodi is amazing… probably my favorite Cambodian for the price, I love the Pursat incense base note that is usually only teased out in the more expensive oils…
I love the bitter and sweet of Cambodian Ouds, but this offering by Ensar takes it to the next level. Love it on my skin, especially when it starts to open up after about an hour or so.
I was suddenly really impressed with the King Kambodi. It has many elements of kinam, particularly at a certain stage of dry-down. It occupies much more of the clean, bright, high end of the oud olfactory spectrum, with no fruit and no fermented notes. Today when I came back to it I thought “I gotta get some of that!”
A subdued candied sweetness that’s balanced well with the spice. It’s refined and not heavy-handed and lets the oud tell the tale. I love the woodiness drydown of King Kambodi; it almost has a carbon paper/camphor vibe to it.
There is a live spice and light heat to this one. It has a radical liveliness to it. I was brought to the place seen in the image for King Kambodi on the website. I honestly felt like a tiger had pounced on me from out of the jungle!
Lives up to it’s name. It’s a high grade classical Cambodian oud. Zero animalics, lots of woody resinous notes. Almost like freshly cut wood. This is the epitome of oud, a perfect example of this ingredient to someone who has never smelled it before. Just pure high grade agarwood oil.