28 December 2012

A Sustainable Alternative to Ambergris?

Scientists have recently created a compound mimicking ambergris- that lovely perfume and drink ingredient that smells like sex in heaven, never mind it's made from regurgitated bits in the intestines of the sperm whale. Ambergris is wickedly expensive, costing up to hundreds of pounds an ounce. This is because whale hunting is now illegal, and the only ambergris that can be sold has to be found washed up on beaches. Now scientists say that using two enzymes extracted from clary sage they have managed to have bacteria recreate the molecule that is so prized in ambergris. I guess its no more or less gross to have it be vomited up by whale or made by bacteria, right?

Link to the ScienceDaily article is below. 
Synthetic Ambergris 

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