Mixology #1: NK Violette over Ava Luxe Black Tea

I have a bottle of Ava Luxe Black Tea, which I quite like...it has both a sweet and an earthy aspect haunting the tea-ness. I also have a decant of Norma Kamali Violette, which I have chatted about before. This morning, I found myself wondering...how to represent a crisp fall day that I knew was going to get mild & sunshiny?

Layers! I had been knocking around the idea of smoke + violet (CB Burning Leaves? SSS Fireside Intense?), which I still intend to investigate. But this morning, I arrived at the Black Tea + Violette concept. Which I still like, as a concept. And which one arm tells me I like as a side-by-side one-two punch. But, when you put one on top of the other, as on the other arm...

...they become a kind of grape sasparilla. Bubbly, with the violet element now easily interpreted as a "natural" grape soda blended with sasparilla, which is what the tea became. Wow. That's chemistry in action. One atop the other didn't work as a palimpsest of scent; instead, it became a third something.

Eventually, as with most sodas, the bubbles settle and nearly go away. Then you are left with an intensified Black Tea, a scent which was probably sweet enough to begin with.

So, if you're searching for Natural Grape Root Beer, load up Black Tea + Violette. If you want to preserve the integrity of each scent, load 'em side by side, and run your nose across them in succession--as if your sniffer were a mouth and your arm a harmonica. Or, perhaps the best choice of all, skip this combination altogether...I'm pretty sure I won't be back myself.

I'll try other combinations in the future, and will undoubtedly report on those. Meanwhile, if you have a combo you like, please share!