By Elias Feghaly, Founder & Designer of KULLI Atelier
Louisville, Kentucky

There is something extraordinary about the way a scent can hold a memory.

The smell of a flower can take you back to your mother's garden. Vanilla can remind you of something baking at home. Cedarwood can connect you to a country thousands of miles away. And the aroma of bourbon can transport you to a celebration in Kentucky—a birthday, an anniversary, an award, a wedding, or simply an evening shared with people you love.

That relationship between scent, taste, place, and memory is at the heart of what I am building at KULLI Atelier in Louisville, Kentucky.

And recently, I discovered something that made me look at my work in an entirely new way:

The worlds of bourbon and perfume speak remarkably similar languages.

One uses a fragrance wheel.

The other uses a whiskey wheel.

Both invite us to slow down, smell, identify, remember, and experience.

And I believe there is an opportunity here in Kentucky to bring these two worlds together.

KULLI Parfum: A Fragrance Between Lebanon and Kentucky

I created KULLI Parfum in 2023 as a fragrance inspired by my own story.

KULLI comes from the Arabic word كلّي, meaning “all of me.”

That idea became important to me because my life has never belonged completely to one place. Part of me will always belong to Lebanon, where I was born, and another part of me belongs to Kentucky, the place where I have built my life, my creative career, and eventually KULLI Atelier.

I wanted the fragrance to hold both.

So instead of simply asking, What smells good together?, I began asking a more interesting question:

What does my story smell like?

Gardenia became the heart of the fragrance because it was my mother's favorite flower. To me, gardenia isn't simply a floral note. It carries family, femininity, home, and memory.

Bourbon became another important element because Kentucky is bourbon country. Bourbon represents the place where I have built the second half of my story.

Then came ylang-ylang, a flower I discovered during a trip to Costa Rica in 2023. I became fascinated by its extraordinary fragrance and how powerfully the flower retains its aroma even as it fades. It felt almost poetic: something can change physically while its essence remains.

Fresh dirt and fresh water brought grounding and earthiness.

Bergamot and blood orange brought brightness and freshness.

Vanilla brought memories of baked goods and the warmth of home.

And cedarwood became another quiet connection to Lebanon and the symbolism of the cedar tree.

Each ingredient had a purpose.

Together, they became more than a perfume formula.

They became a map.

Lebanon. Kentucky. Family. Travel. Home. Celebration. Memory.

That is what perfume can do.

And it turns out bourbon does something remarkably similar.

The Moment I Realized Bourbon and Perfume Were Connected

A few weeks ago, I was meeting with someone from the distilling world and presenting the KULLI Atelier Perfume Bar.

I began explaining how I help guests build a fragrance.

At KULLI Atelier, we use a fragrance wheel to help people understand different scent families and navigate the perfume-making process.

Our wheel organizes notes into families including floral, green, fruity, foody, earthy, and woody. From there, guests can explore individual ingredients such as orange blossom, rose, lavender, fresh water, green tea, bergamot, vanilla, fresh dirt, tobacco, vetiver, myrrh, frankincense and cedarwood. The KULLI wheel also helps guests understand the architecture of a perfume through top, heart and base notes.

I remember holding up the fragrance wheel while explaining the process.

The person sitting across from me suddenly had this look in his eyes.

There was a little twinkle.

I stopped.

“What?”

He explained that in the bourbon world, they do essentially the same thing.

When tasting whiskey, professionals and enthusiasts use a whiskey flavor wheel to help identify aromas and flavors.

I looked at the bourbon wheel, and I was floored.

There they were:

Vanilla.

Caramel.

Oak.

Cedar.

Tobacco.

Leather.

Fresh herbs.

Citrus.

Orchard fruit.

Berries.

Dried fruit.

Cinnamon.

Clove.

Nutmeg.

Chocolate.

Coffee.

Honey.

Brown sugar.

Smoke.

The vocabulary was incredibly familiar.

I realized we weren't talking about two completely separate industries.

We were talking about two different ways of experiencing aroma.

Bourbon Tasting and Perfume Blending Begin With the Nose

Before someone ever tastes bourbon, they smell it.

Before someone decides whether they love a perfume, they smell it.

Both experiences begin with aroma.

A bourbon drinker may recognize oak, vanilla, caramel, dried fruit, baking spices, tobacco or floral qualities in a whiskey.

A perfumer may work with vanilla, cedarwood, bergamot, tobacco, cinnamon, florals, fruits and woods to construct a fragrance.

Of course, whiskey tasting and perfumery are different disciplines. One should not be reduced to the other.

But creatively, their vocabularies overlap in fascinating ways.

And that creates an opportunity.

Imagine experiencing a Kentucky bourbon while simultaneously exploring some of the aromas that help describe it.

You smell vanilla.

Then cedarwood.

Perhaps bergamot.

Maybe tobacco.

Magnolia.

Gardenia.

Fresh dirt.

Orange blossom.

You begin understanding the bourbon through your nose before—or alongside—experiencing it through taste.

And then something unexpected happens.

You take those aromatic ideas and turn them into your own perfume.

Now the tasting isn't simply something you experienced.

You have created something that can bring you back to it.

From Bourbon Tasting to a Perfume You Take Home

This is the experience I want to create with Kentucky bourbon brands, Louisville distilleries, hotels, restaurants, event spaces, tourism partners and hospitality companies.

KULLI Atelier can bring our mobile Perfume Bar directly to a partner location.

The collaboration can be designed around a specific bourbon, whiskey, rum, tequila, hotel, property, event, anniversary, product launch, or brand story.

For a bourbon collaboration, for example, the fragrance experience could begin with a bourbon-inspired accord.

Then we build a curated flight of approximately 12 fragrance notes around the featured spirit.

Depending on the bourbon and the story we're telling, guests might encounter:

• Bergamot or citrus for brightness
• Magnolia or gardenia for florals
• Vanilla for warmth and sweetness
• Cedarwood for structure
• Tobacco for depth
• Fresh dirt for earthiness
• Cinnamon or spice
• Fruit notes
• Woods
• Herbs
• Other ingredients selected specifically around the bourbon's character
• 

Guests smell each ingredient and discover which notes speak to them.

Then we blend their selections into a personal fragrance on the spot.

The distillery provides the story and the tasting.

KULLI Atelier provides the scent experience.

And the guest leaves with something incredibly personal:

A perfume created from the memory of that experience.

Why Scent Makes an Extraordinary Souvenir

We buy plenty of things when we travel.

T-shirts.

Glasses.

Bottles.

Postcards.

But scent has an unusual relationship with memory.

You can smell something years later and suddenly remember where you were, who was sitting beside you, what you were celebrating and how you felt.

That's why I think perfume can become an incredible extension of Kentucky bourbon tourism and Louisville hospitality.

Imagine visiting Kentucky for a bourbon experience and creating a fragrance during the trip.

Years later, you open that bottle.

You spray it.

And suddenly:

You're back in Kentucky.

That is much more interesting to me than creating another souvenir.

We're preserving an experience.

Your Formula Doesn't Disappear After the Party

There is another part of the KULLI Atelier experience that happened almost accidentally.

As I began creating more custom fragrances, I had a problem:

I had too many formulas.

Paper formula cards are beautiful, and I still love them, but as the Perfume Bar grew, I realized I needed a better system for preserving what people created.

I'm an artist—not a tech bro.

But necessity has a funny way of pushing you into new territory.

I teamed up with my brother to develop a system for storing the custom perfume formulas created through KULLI Atelier.

That means the perfume you create isn't just mixed, handed to you, and forgotten.

Your formula becomes part of our archive.

We can locate it using identifying information such as the customer's name or perfume name and recreate the fragrance later.

You could create your perfume while visiting Louisville, return home to another state, and still have the formula preserved with us.

When you're ready for another bottle, the formula is there.

For local guests, refills can also be ordered through KULLI Atelier at Mellwood Art Center, with our current custom fragrance refill priced at $40.

I love this part of the experience because it makes perfume feel almost like a personal recipe.

Your scent. Your formula. Your memory.

What Could a Bourbon + KULLI Atelier Collaboration Look Like?

This is where I want Kentucky's bourbon and hospitality community to get creative with me.

A collaboration doesn't need to look the same for every partner.

A distillery might invite KULLI Atelier to create a bourbon and perfume blending event surrounding a particular bottle they want guests to discover.

A hotel could offer a Kentucky scent experience for visitors, wedding parties, VIP guests or corporate groups.

A bourbon brand could commission a signature fragrance inspired by the brand, its ingredients, its history or a particular whiskey.

A restaurant could create a dinner pairing where fragrance, cocktails and food interact.

A tourism organization could incorporate perfume blending into a Kentucky experience.

A company celebrating an anniversary could create a fragrance around its history.

A wedding could pair a bourbon tasting with a custom scent the couple and their guests associate with the evening.

And the concept doesn't have to stop with bourbon.

Rum, tequila, wine and other spirits have their own aromatic identities that could inspire entirely different fragrance experiences.

The point isn't to make perfume smell exactly like a drink.

The point is storytelling.

What does this bourbon remind you of?

What aromas do you discover?

What part of Kentucky does it represent?

What emotion does it create?

And if we translated that story into fragrance...

what would it smell like?

Kentucky Bourbon Is Already an Aromatic Experience

Kentucky has built an extraordinary culture around bourbon.

There is history.

Craftsmanship.

Agriculture.

Barrels.

Architecture.

Hospitality.

Food.

Tourism.

Design.

Tradition.

But what fascinates me most as a perfumer is the sensory vocabulary already embedded within that culture.

Look at a whiskey flavor wheel and a fragrance wheel beside one another.

The similarities become difficult to ignore.

The bourbon wheel supplied with this project moves through broad sensory categories such as sweet, woody, earthy, herbal, spicy, floral and fruity, then breaks those categories into increasingly specific characteristics.

KULLI Atelier's fragrance wheel similarly moves through floral, green, fruity, foody, earthy and woody fragrance families before arriving at individual materials and accords.

They aren't identical tools, nor are they meant to be.

But visually and conceptually, they demonstrate something beautiful:

Humans understand complex sensory experiences by creating a language around them.

Perfume does it.

Bourbon does it.

Wine does it.

Food does it.

And that shared language gives us somewhere new to play.

KULLI Classic Bourbon: My Love Letter to Kentucky

When I created what became KULLI Classic Bourbon, I wasn't trying to imitate a glass of bourbon.

I was trying to capture what bourbon represented in my life.

Celebration.

Kentucky.

Warmth.

Gathering.

I've noticed that bourbon has often appeared around happy moments in my life.

An Old Fashioned at a celebration.

A birthday.

An anniversary.

An award ceremony.

A moment when something I had worked toward finally happened.

There was bourbon.

So when I began building my own fragrance story, it felt natural that bourbon belonged there.

Gardenia could represent my mother.

Cedarwood could represent Lebanon.

Ylang-ylang could represent discovery and travel.

Vanilla could represent home.

And bourbon could represent Kentucky.

One fragrance could hold all of those places at once.

That's KULLI.

All of me.

An Invitation to Kentucky's Distilleries, Bourbon Brands and Hotels

This next chapter is something I don't want to build alone.

I'm calling on Kentucky bourbon brands, Louisville distilleries, Kentucky hotels, hospitality groups, restaurants, tourism organizations, event planners and creative partners who are interested in experimenting with what a bourbon experience can become.

Come visit me.

Come smell.

Come sit at the Perfume Bar.

Let's put the whiskey wheel beside the fragrance wheel.

Let's choose a bourbon.

Let's smell the notes.

Let's talk about your history, your bottle, your property, your guests and the memories you want people to leave with.

And then let's build something.

Because I don't think bourbon and perfume are as far apart as they initially appear.

One lives in a glass.

One lives on the skin.

But both begin with aroma.

Both require craftsmanship.

Both develop through layers.

Both have their own language of notes.

And perhaps most importantly:

Both have an extraordinary ability to become attached to memory.

Kentucky has already mastered the art of inviting people to taste its story.

Maybe now we can invite them to wear it.

Bring the KULLI Atelier Perfume Bar to Your Bourbon, Hotel or Hospitality Experience

KULLI Atelier is a fine jewelry design and perfume atelier located at Mellwood Art Center in Louisville, Kentucky. Our Perfume Bar offers custom fragrance creation, private perfume experiences, perfume parties, brand collaborations and mobile fragrance experiences that can travel to partner locations.

For bourbon distilleries, Kentucky whiskey brands, Louisville hotels, corporate events, weddings, hospitality groups and tourism partners, custom experiences can be developed around your brand, bottle, property or story.

Interested in collaborating?

Visit KULLI Atelier at Mellwood Art Center, experience the Perfume Bar for yourself, and let's start with one question:

If your bourbon—or your brand—became a perfume, what would it smell like?

KULLI Atelier | Louisville, Kentucky
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Collaboration inquiries: 502-509-3344