Last night I went to see Roger Daltrey in concert, and for the evening I went with Amouage Beach Hut Man. This ended up being a perfect concert fragrance. Beach Hut Man opens with that sharp green mint, ivy and herbal freshness, but it is not a light summer freshie. As it develops, the woods, vetiver, patchouli and that slightly smoky Amouage character start coming through and give it some real backbone. What I like about Beach Hut Man is that it smells masculine, confident and a little rugged without trying too hard. It has freshness, but there is enough darkness underneath it to keep it interesting. For an evening rock concert, that combination just worked. And performance was exactly what I wanted. It projected enough that I could smell it around me throughout the evening without feeling like I was wearing something obnoxiously sweet or overpowering in a crowd. Roger Daltrey still brought that unmistakable rock-and-roll presence, and Beach Hut Man felt like the right fragrance to go along with it — old-school masculine attitude with enough refinement to still feel modern. Sometimes the fragrance really does become part of the memory of the night. Amouage Beach Hut Man. Excellent choice for this one.

My Top Montagne Parfums — How Close Are They to the Originals, and Are Any Actually Better? I look at Montagne a little differently than I do most clone houses. I have always said that if you're cloning a fragrance, name the original. I don't care how good the clone is; the original deserves the credit. Then I judge the clone for what it actually is. For me, there are two questions: How close did they get to the original? And maybe even more importantly: Did they do anything that actually makes me want to wear the Montagne instead? Montagne is one of the few clone houses where I can legitimately say the answer to that second question is sometimes yes. These are the Montagne bottles that stand out the most to me. 1. Tigris Cologne — Inspired by Bvlgari Tygar This may still be Montagne at its best. You get that huge sparkling grapefruit sitting over the clean woody ambroxan base that makes Tygar so ridiculously easy to wear. The original Tygar is smoother and more refined. You can tell where some of that extra money went when you smell them directly beside each other. But Tigris Cologne gives me a juicy grapefruit, a very good presence, and gets extremely close to the overall experience. This isn't something I smell and say, “that's pretty good for a clone.” It's just a damn good fragrance. Closeness to the OG: 95% Better than the OG? In refinement, no. But when you bring grapefruit, performance and value into the conversation, I can make an argument for Tigris Cologne. My rating: 9.5/10 2. Afternoon Dive — Inspired by Louis Vuitton Afternoon Swim Another one Montagne absolutely nailed. Afternoon Swim has that gorgeous natural orange and mandarin opening that Louis Vuitton does extremely well. Afternoon Dive is a little sharper and slightly more citrus-peel-like right at the beginning, but give it a few minutes and these two get surprisingly close. The bigger issue for me is performance. Afternoon Swim smells fantastic, but I have always wanted more staying power out of that DNA. Afternoon Dive hangs around better.