plant
Laudanum
Papaver somniferum
Origin
Laudanum is an alcoholic tincture of opium, the dried latex of the opium poppy, historically grown across Asia Minor, Persia, and India. It should not be confused with labdanum, the cistus resin, though the two were sometimes conflated in old texts.
The smell
Bitter, dark, and faintly medicinal, with the resinous tang of opium tincture dissolved in alcohol. There is a sweetness lurking beneath, almost narcotic, like overripe poppy heads and aged spice. It smells heavy and dreamlike, the scent of something both healing and dangerous.
Key quality
A narcotic tincture of opium, evoking the heavy sweetness of the poppy and Georgian medicine.
Historical use
Formulated by the physician Paracelsus in the sixteenth century and popularised in England by Thomas Sydenham, laudanum was the household remedy of the Georgian and Victorian eras, taken for everything from coughs to melancholy. It claimed Romantic figures such as Coleridge and De Quincey, who wove their addictions into literature, and was readily available over the counter until the late nineteenth century.
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