Wisconsin perfume expert shares her thoughts on Miller High Life’s ‘Dive Bar-Fume’

Milwaukee-based beer company Miller High Life decided to try its hand at something new this holiday season when it announced the creation of a signature cologne. 

The cologne, aptly named Dive Bar-Fume, has notes of patchouli, cedar wood, tobacco, leather and sea salt — smells meant to evoke a bar’s worn leather stools, wooden countertops and the fries you get at the end of the night.

WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” wanted to know more about this curious scent and the perfume industry. Local perfumer Kristi Moe, founder and president of Zodica Perfumery in Madison, shared her thoughts on Dive Bar-Fume, the power of scent and why she loves perfume.  

Dive Bar-Fume

Moe said she loves that perfume is novel and fun. 

“Perfume and cologne in general … purely exists for our pleasure and for our entertainment,” she said. “Why not have fun with it?”

Scent is a highly subjective experience, she said. What smells great to one person — like a cologne inspired by a dive bar — will not smell good to someone else. With that in mind, she said Miller clearly knows its customer base. 

“They know their likes and their dislikes,” she said. “The ultimate fan … will eat it up.”

What if you don’t like scents?

Moe is so sensitive to scents that some trigger headaches for her. 

“I was that person,” she said. “I can’t do candles most of the time. If I am in a relationship with someone, I’m choosing their shampoo and their conditioner and their soap, and anything that triggers a headache for me goes into the trash can.”

Moe said for her and others, the chemicals traditionally used in perfumes can even trigger migraines. So she tries to avoid those in her products. 

The challenges the perfume-making industry 

Moe said there are not a lot of indie perfumers out there, because it’s very difficult to make a good perfume. 

The Midwest is also light on perfumers, Moe said, because oil manufacturers are on the coasts.

“It is very rare to find perfumers outside of those locations,” she said.  

The power of scent 

Moe explained that the sense of smell is profoundly connected to our emotions and our memories. Perfume makers believe “you can use that as a superpower,” she said. 

Scent can facilitate a sort of time travel — reminding us of times past, like a loved one who’s no longer with us. You can use that fact to capture memories for the future, Moe said, like wearing a specific scent on your wedding day. 

“It’s life changing because you can suddenly conjure up these memories from decades ago,” she said.