wiki-illiam #108: q17

[dubdobdee]

17. Which spirited concoction of which House:

1: is an amaryllid?
2: is papaveraceous?
3: recalls pink-tipped pale hands?
4: recalls a Piedmontese foundation?
5: might have been named Jolly Roger?
6: shares its name with a Breton music festival?
7: might be translated as inconsistency?
8: might be derived from Taro root?
9: suggests a raptor's grasp?
10: is a riding-habit?

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

These must be cocktails! Except I don't know any of the answers!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I was thinking whiskies and whisky makers (or similar). Didn't we have a round on sherry last year?

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

3) There's a cocktail called the Rosy Dawn! Mind you there's probably a cocktail called most things.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I gotta say, as a cocktail and spirits bore of long standing, that I have 0 clue what any of these are.

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

2 would be "pertaining to the poppy" (papaveraceae is the poppy family)...does laudanum count as a cocktail?

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Hmm to me the word "House" suggests fashion-type rather than alcohol-type stuff; could these "spirited concoctions" instead be PERFUMES? For #2 there is surely one named Opium, though I can't remember which house makes it.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

I think you've cracked it, anatol: Opium is Yves St Laurent

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Searching around makes me feel a) this is BLVDDY HARD and b) that my perfume hunch was correct. Specifically, I've found the answer to #3 (and only #3, despite some effort), and it refers to yet another obscurish POME, which, to be "fair", in song form was apparently "popular until the Second World War"...

I'll quote the start, so you can use the rhyme + your perfumal knowledge to try and get it:

Pale hands I loved beside the _________,
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?

Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far,
Before you agonise them in farewell?

Sadly, I could not find any perfumes named FEST NOZ (#6) nor TALON (#9)...

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

the word missing from the poem is SHALIMAR! and *googles* that is indeed the name of a perfume (House of Guerlain)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Oh, but there I came upon one (web help is ok now the next one is up, right?):

#7 may possibly be Paradox (http://www.fragrancenet.com/paradox-perfume/jacomo/womens-fragrances/wf/en_US/01843) by Jacomo, which apparently lives up to its own name with a fruity scent that's extremely complex while remaining sublimely subtle during wear. The top notes provide an initial flair of fruitiness, consisting of exotic fruits and jasmine. Lower notes of ylang-ylang, vanilla, and caramel keep the heady fruit opening from overwhelming, adding a complex blend to the mix while aiding with the subtlety. The combination is a casual scent that's best suited for daytime wear. The fragrance was introduced in 1998.

A point of doubt is: is this perfume famous enough to be an answer here? (The two previously solved ones are pretty damned big, even I know that.) This actually shows a bias of Wikipedia in particular that I've noticed before in context of quiz preparation and quiz setting, which is difficult not to assign to gender stuff: lifestyle-type subjects like fashion are pretty poorly covered when it comes to depth.