{"title":"Alex Lee","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlex Lee\u003c\/strong\u003e is a contemporary perfumer working in a bold, gourmand-leaning idiom, where sweetness is kept in check by spice, wood and a slightly rough texture. It is a style for people who like dessert notes but want a fragrance that still feels adult.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor the South Korean niche house \u003cstrong\u003eBORNTOSTANDOUT\u003c\/strong\u003e, Alex composed \u003ca href=\"\/products\/borntostandout-drunk-maple-eau-de-parfum\"\u003eDrunk Maple Eau de Parfum\u003c\/a\u003e. It opens sharp and peppery, with pink pepper and davana, a herb with a fruity, boozy facet, and rum adding a warm spirit note. The heart pairs coffee and maple syrup with soft, powdery suede, which stops the gourmand elements becoming cloying. The base of vanilla, benzoin, amberwood and sandalwood keeps the composition grounded and resinous rather than candied.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGourmand perfumery, which uses edible notes such as vanilla, caramel, coffee and syrups, has become one of the most popular fragrance families. The best examples balance sweetness with structure, and Drunk Maple does so through its spice and woods, making it especially good for cooler months and evenings.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBORNTOSTANDOUT\u003c\/strong\u003e, founded in Seoul in 2022 by Jun Lim, builds bold, provocative, unapologetically sensual fragrances, and its Extrait Extrême line pushes those ideas to their most concentrated form.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrunk Maple is offered here as a full bottle. Explore Alex Lee’s work at Redolia Perfumery below.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"borntostandout-drunk-maple-eau-de-parfum","title":"BORNTOSTANDOUT Drunk Maple Eau de Parfum","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWhat it smells like\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDrunk Maple opens with a sharp, almost peppery brightness—pink pepper and davana arriving first, with rum cutting through to establish something immediately warm and slightly boozy. It's not sweet from the start. There's a deliberate roughness to the top notes, a sense of spice and fermentation that keeps things from feeling candied or innocent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe heart becomes richer and more substantial. Coffee and maple syrup emerge together, creating that peculiar sweetness you find in a really good coffee shop when someone's made a maple-glazed pastry nearby. There's suede here too—a soft, almost powdery texture that prevents the gourmand elements from becoming cloying. This is where the fragrance reveals its duality: it's simultaneously comforting and slightly unsettling, like comfort that's been left out in the cold.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe base is where things become properly addictive. Vanilla and benzoin provide the expected warmth, but amberwood and sandalwood add a woody, almost resinous quality that keeps the composition grounded. This isn't a fragrance that dissolves into pure sweetness. It maintains a structural integrity, a backbone of something earthy and substantial beneath all that maple and rum.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWorn on skin, Drunk Maple reads as intimate and slightly provocative—the kind of scent that makes people lean in closer, wondering what they're actually smelling. It's a gourmand fragrance, yes, but one with real character and restraint.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWho made it\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDrunk Maple comes from BORNTOSTANDOUT, the Seoul-based niche house founded in 2022 by Jun Lim under House by Lim. Perfumer Alex Lee has crafted this composition with the house's signature sensibility: bold, unapologetic, and deliberately confronting in its approach to fragrance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBORNTOSTANDOUT emerged from Seoul's independent perfume scene with an immediately distinctive point of view. The house doesn't concern itself with conventional fragrance marketing or the polite restraint that characterises much of the niche market. Instead, it builds fragrances around dirty, addictive, skin-and-gourmand themes, presenting them in heavy, minimalist flacons with names designed to provoke conversation rather than reassure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a house that understands that fragrance can be sensual without apology, that sweetness doesn't require innocence, and that the best scents are often the ones that make you slightly uncomfortable before you realise you love them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWho it's for\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDrunk Maple is for anyone who finds conventional gourmand fragrances too one-dimensional. If you've ever loved a sweet fragrance but wished it had more edge, more complexity, more sense of danger—this is your scent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt suits people who aren't afraid of fragrance as a statement. The name alone signals that this isn't a safe choice, and the composition backs that up. You're not wearing this to blend in. You're wearing it because you appreciate craftsmanship, because you like fragrances that reveal themselves slowly, and because you're comfortable with a little provocation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no gender to this fragrance. The coffee and suede give it an almost masculine structure; the maple and rum provide warmth that reads as feminine; the overall effect is simply sophisticated and adult. It works equally well on anyone who gravitates toward gourmand fragrances with backbone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhen to wear it\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDrunk Maple is best suited to cooler months and evening wear. There's something inherently autumnal about it—the maple, the coffee, the warmth of rum and vanilla all suggest September evenings and the shift toward winter. It's a fragrance for layered clothing, for situations where you want to be noticed, for moments when restraint feels less important than presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is an Eau de Parfum, which means it has the concentration and longevity to carry you through an entire evening. It develops and shifts on skin over time, revealing different facets as it settles. Give it space to breathe; it rewards patience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eAbout the house\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBORNTOSTANDOUT represents a particular moment in niche perfumery: the emergence of independent voices from outside the traditional European fragrance establishment. Founded in Seoul in 2022, the house has built its reputation on a refreshingly direct approach to fragrance composition and marketing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEvery BORNTOSTANDOUT fragrance is built around a specific sensual concept, executed without apology or softening. The house's Extrait Extreme line represents the most concentrated, longest-lasting expression of this daring sensibility—a full commitment to the original vision. These aren't fragrances designed by committee or tested against focus groups. They're the work of a house that knows exactly what it wants to say and says it clearly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe minimalist flacons—heavy, sculptural, deliberately understated—reflect the house's philosophy. There's no ornament here, no distraction. Just fragrance and the bottle it comes in. At Redolia Perfumery, we stock BORNTOSTANDOUT as full bottles, allowing you to experience the house's work in its intended concentration and longevity.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BORNTOSTANDOUT","offers":[{"title":"1.7 oz (50 ml)","offer_id":54395833188668,"sku":"8809840210844","price":230.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0987\/7078\/0476\/files\/50-DRUNK_MAPLE_bottle.jpg?v=1789436221"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0987\/7078\/0476\/collections\/alex-lee-perfumer.png?v=1790244203","url":"https:\/\/redolia.com\/collections\/alex-lee.oembed","provider":"Redolia Perfumery","version":"1.0","type":"link"}