When reading a book about Medieval times I discovered that it was also called a “strewing herb” because people in those times, well, “strewed” it on their floors along with pennyroyal, and lavender to help with insect problems.  I thought that was great and would be a terrific thing in modern times except for the fact that your floor would resemble that of a roadhouse.  Still, the next time I go camping I think I will toss a little of it on the floor of the tent.  It might not control mosquitoes, but it will smell wonderful.

Given that the scent is warm, spicy, woody and very much reminiscent of cinnamon, it works very well with the following ingredients. Cedar, Myrrh, Patchouli, Borneol Camphor and Benzoin.

Although complicated, here is a wonderful Kyphi recipe where Calmus is featured.

4 parts Frankincense

2 parts Mastic

1/2 part Juniper berries

1/4 part Calmus

1/4 part Galangal

1/2 part Cardamom

1 part Cinnamon bark

1 part Myrrh

1 part Lemon Grass

1/2 part Rose leaves (dried rose buds)

1 part Benzoin of Siam

1 1/2 part Sandalwood

Pinch of Aquillaria wood

1/2 part Honey

Tablespoon at a time of rich red wine

8 parts Sultana raisins, unsulfured.

Soak the raisins overnight in red wine and pulverize the frankincense, myrrh, mastic and benzoin with a mortar and pestle.  Pulverize individually the cinnamon, juniper berries, calmus, galangal, cardamom and sandalwood.  Mix all the ingredients together and cut the lemongrass and crumble the rose buds.  Use 1/2 teaspoon of aquillaria wood to 1 cup of this mixture.  You can do without the aquillaria wood if it is not available to you.

Remove the raisins from the wine and blend everything together with a blender so that it is pulverized then use the honey to add to the mixture so that you get a dough-like substance that you can knead well and easily.  You can either crumble it in your palms and allow it to dry (turning it often over 7 to 14 days) or you can roll it into pea-sized pellets as the Egyptians preferred and allow to dry as above.

Congratulations, it is one of the more complex and difficult recipes from antiquity but one that is well worth the effort.

Spruce pine, also called cedar-pine or bottom-white pine, is a member of the southern yellow pine group. It is the most shade-tolerant species of southern pine and is scattered throughout the southeast in mixed hardwood stands, rarely occurring in pure stands.

The wood from spruce pine is brittle and close-grained. It lacks durability and has little commercial value, except as a pulpwood. Occasionally, spruce pines are grown for Christmas trees because of their attractive coloring and spruce-like appearance.

The trees provide important resources for numerous wildlife species, including bobwhite quail and squirrels, who eat the seeds. Songbirds, owls, and hawks all use the trees for cover or nesting.

Burgundy pitch blends well with the following incense ingredients: benzoin, cedar,  juniper, lavender, oakmoss, rosemary or white sage.

A very pleasant incense recipe featuring burgundy pitch also features sage for a wonderfully refreshing outdoorsy scent.

2 parts Colophony Pine resin

1 part Burgundy Pitch resin

1/2 part Pine Needles

1/2 part Desert Sage

This species was one of the main sources of camphor and attracted early Arab traders to Borneo.  Camphor at that time was valued more highly than gold and was used extensively in incense and perfumes of the period.  This was during the time of Marco Polo, around 1269 or so, and he remarks on the trade of camphor for gold.

Camphor has a clean, clear scent and mixes will with aloeswood, clove, cinnamon and frankincense.  There is however a synthetic camphor called Borneolum syntheticum that should never be used for incense making as it has a pronounced turpentine-like scent.  So beware and purchase only natural ingredients for your incense creations.

A very pleasant recipe you can try that features camphor is:

2 parts Frankincense

1 part Camphor

1 part Cloves

1/2 part White Pine needles

1/2 part Juniper Tips

When burned, it produces a fresh, woody fragrance with a high clear note.  Personally, it reminds me of the smell of evergreen trees in the snow.

Benzoin is highly prized in India for its soft, sensuous and warm properties. It mixes very well with most other incense ingredients and gives them fragrance. Mixed with sandalwood it is one of the most typical incense mixtures of Asia.

The people of India use it as a remedy for skin diseases and respiratory ailments. Believing that the smoke is particularly helpful for dry coughs. It is comparable to frankincense in that it occupies a place in worship as it is burned before statues and paintings that represent Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Typically you can find it as Benzoin of Sumatra and Benzoin of Siam when you are shopping for it to make your own incense creations.

A member of the Fabaceae family, the same as the Peruvian balsam tree, the tolu tree can grow its straight trunk up to 40 feet high. All parts of the tree have an aromatic fragrance and the balsam discharges from V-shaped cuts in the bark and is collected in containers.

The balsam is soft and can be kneaded easily. It can contain small crystals and it hardens over time to to a dark or reddish-brown color. It has been used for centuries for a variety of ailments including coughs, headaches, gout and various stomach ailments.

It combines the smell of vanilla, cinnamon and (oddly) fresh mown grass due to vanillin, cinnamon acid and coumarin in the resin. It is a calming and relaxing scent when burned and lends an air of harmony as well. It is a great resin to burn just before sleep to calm your busy mind and to prepare for a good nights sleep.

It works well when blended with tangy ingredients in an incense mixture as it softens them and enriches them as well.

Besides being mentioned in the bible, Gen. 37:25, Jeremiah 46:11 and Jeremiah 8:22, it also gets a mention in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”. So from ancient times to modern, the perceived effects of this resin is well known.

According to history Mary Magdalene’s father owned a balsam grove and as such he was under orders from the king to produce a consecrated oil. Judea kept a monopoly on balsam for quite a long time and exported it throughout antiquity. The ancient Egyptians used balsam for embalming and the production of the most precious and sacred salves. During the Crusades balsam arrived in Europe and was considered one of the rarest and most precious of the incense burning substances.

It has a lemony, gentle, herb-like, warm and velvety fragrance. Unfortunately it is very difficult to find pure balsam nowadays. Generally people are referring to Tolu Balsam when they are talking about balsam.

The tree known throughout the Eastern United States and Canada as Balm of Gilead is not the same thing. That tree is Populus candicans. Also known variously as Balsam Poplar, Canary Balm, True Balm of Gilead, Willow Poplar and Mecca Balsam.

It is a deciduous tree that can grow up to 90 feet tall or more. This tree yields smallish, ribbed and nut-like fruits which are picked when still green and then pickled, boiled with a little added sugar in their own syrup or used in preserves or concoctions. The seed of the fruit, which has an elliptical shape, is an abrasive seed enveloped by a fleshy and firm pulp. It is regarded as a universal panacea in the Ayur-Vedic Medicine and in the Traditional Tibetan medicine. It is reputed to cure blindness and it is believed to inhibit the growth of malignant tumours.

In Urdu and Hindi it is called Harad, Haritaki, or Harada, respectively ‘Inknut’. In Sri Lanka it is called Aralu. In Marathi it is called as ‘Hirada’, in Kannada it is called ‘Alalekaayi’ and in Tamil it is called ‘Kadukkai’. In Bengali it is called horitoky. In Assamese it is called Xilikha. In Telugu it is called ‘Karakkaya’.

People burn the pulverized fruit to treat asthma, but they also add the pulverized bark to incense mixtures. When burned the fragrance is a very gentle, warm and woody scent.

What we are more interested in however is the dried fruit of the plant. Which adds a sweet, spicy and somewhat fruity fragrance to a mixture. It is a good complement to heavy or sharp fragrances and has a calming effect on the psyche.

If you have trouble obtaining it, or want a little stronger scent then Japanese anise (Illicium verum) is a great substitute. It has a bit fuller and sweeter fragrance. The scent of anise is excellent for writers or programmers of anyone who does a great deal of intellectual work. It creates a very comfortable, relaxed atmosphere.

When fresh amergris has no value as the smell is powerfully fecal. As it ages and matures however it develops a sweet, earthy scent that is exquisite as well as sensual. It is commonly found in lumps that weigh anywhere from .5 ounces to a huge 100 pounds or more.

When it is first expelled from the sperm whale it is a pale white in color and sometimes streaked with black. After many months or even years of being exposed to the sun and salt sea it hardens to a dark grey or black color, very waxy in feel and develops its characteristic sweet, earthy and animalic smell. I have heard (and read) that the scent is very like rubbing alcohol in fragrance except without the astringent, chemical smell. To be honest, I have not put my nose to a bottle of rubbing alcohol to test this. I just know the scent is wonderful.

It is a wonderful scent, surprising given its origin and role in the animals life, and well worth seeking out. You can be assured that no sperm whale was harmed in order for you to enjoy the fragrance.

Although all amber will emit a pleasant fragrance when heated, don’t dash off and incinerate your jewelry or heaven forbid, your wife or girlfriends jewelry. Besides, quite a lot of amber jewelry contains prehistoric insects as a selling point and I am pretty certain that burning insects, prehistoric or not, is not a pleasant scent.

Baltic amber or “succinite” is so named because it contains about 8% succinic acid but more importantly to fans of incense, it emits a very unique and very wonderful fragrance when heated. The ancient Greeks burned amber extensively as an incense resin and they believed that the “sun stone” connected them to the sun god and created an atmosphere or renewal and mental alertness. Amber was also a favorite ingredient in mixtures used in temples of the time and for medicinal purposes as well.

A simple recipe you can try in addition to just burning amber is below.

Greek Temple Frankincense

2 parts frankincense
1 part myrhh
1 part cedar
1/4 part amber

Crush all the ingredients together with a mortar and pestle and mix thoroughly. Then heat on a mica plate or with charcoal buried in the traditional way in white rice ash.