Cat pee

S

Sharon Bowman

Sharon Bowman
As just posted, I'm drinking a particularly cat pee-y sauvignon blanc right now. Which reminds me of the interesting difference between the way we describe it in English and the way they describe it in French.

Our Froggy counterparts employ the more delicate term of buis, i.e. boxwood, the shrub.* Having not grown up around boxwood, I shrug. (Near zeugma.)

However, an amusing thing did happen recently when I was with three friends sitting on a late coolish evening on 1st Street and Extra Place in lower Manhattan at the restaurant L'Apicio's outside terrace. Whenever the breeze blew in a certain direction, it smelled like piss. No two ways about it. I assumed it was from the many, many 20-somethings coming and going from the adjacent building, most in shorts and cutoff t-shirts and often walking dogs. All those bleedin' dogs!

Finally with one zephyr and the stink again, I mentioned that it smelled a lot like pee. A friend gratefully broke in and said it was stifling. Then I looked at the planters just next to our table.

You'll have guessed it: boxwood.

Take that. Boxwood does smell like pee!

* ETA: Though they do also say "pipi de chat," so they ain't angels.
 
And it's actually interesting that I never get that flavor (or at least as sharply) as with what I tasted this evening. I guess the only SBs I tend to drink are CRB and Vatan. With a few Cotats tossed into the mix (which I like less because they are too ripe/RS for me).

Is pissy SB still a thing?
 
Does boxwood really stink that much? Because in all my walks around boxwood hedges, I have not - for once - smelled cat pee.
 
What Markus said. We've got a boxwood in the back and no cat pee evident. Maybe more than one species?

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
What Markus said. We've got a boxwood in the back and no cat pee evident. Maybe more than one species?

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

Yes, different species (or at least varieties). We have some pyramidal boxwoods around our house that don't have a strong scent, but I've definitely encountered malodorous varieties elsewhere.
 
Yes, I imagine it has to do with variety of boxwood.

On a plant note, two years ago over a long Labor Day weekend, SFJ and I went to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. We rented an Airbnb house near Port Townsend (turns out it is much further to get to the far side of the Olympic National Park than you'd think--so much driving!). It was deep in the woods, right on the water. Really gorgeous old trees and vines and undergrowth, etc., and very isolated.

That summer had been one of the driest on record. We visited the Hoh Rain Forest, and it was basically a regular forest.

The last day of our stay, we woke up early in the morning, because it was time to drive to the airport. The stench hit me with awakenness. The septic tank must have broken, or sewage was flowing back up the drains, or something. It was overpowering.

After inspecting everything, we discovered that nothing was amiss (which was at least a relief for any damages that could perhaps be charged). It's just that it was raining outside. We concluded that the cabbage-looking plants in the forest we were surrounded by were activated by the rain to smell like sewage.

Ever after, we would refer to that stay as our time in Sewage Woods.

ETA: I think after not discovering any broken anything, we opened the windows to let the stench out, and instead it got stronger, which was the first clue that the smell was coming from the forest.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Yes, I imagine it has to do with variety of boxwood.

On a plant note, two years ago over a long Labor Day weekend, SFJ and I went to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. We rented an Airbnb house near Port Townsend (turns out it is much further to get to the far side of the Olympic National Park than you'd think--so much driving!). It was deep in the woods, right on the water. Really gorgeous old trees and vines and undergrowth, etc., and very isolated.

That summer had been one of the driest on record. We visited the Hoh Rain Forest, and it was basically a regular forest.

The last day of our stay, we woke up early in the morning, because it was time to drive to the airport. The stench hit me with awakenness. The septic tank must have broken, or sewage was flowing back up the drains, or something. It was overpowering.

After inspecting everything, we discovered that nothing was amiss (which was at least a relief for any damages that could perhaps be charged). It's just that it was raining outside. We concluded that the cabbage-looking plants in the forest we were surrounded by were activated by the rain to smell like sewage.

Ever after, we would refer to that stay as our time in Sewage Woods.

ETA: I think after not discovering any broken anything, we opened the windows to let the stench out, and instead it got stronger, which was the first clue that the smell was coming from the forest.
Click to expand...

Great story! Probably was skunk cabbage, would be my guess. One of the most enduring memories (along with fly fishing, mosquitoes and huckleberries) of the summers I spent in Montana.

Mark Lipton
 
Yes, skunk cabbage. I've seen bears eating the stuff in springtime.

We had boxwood plants growing in front of our porch in New Jersey and they were of the seriously stinky cat pee variety. Considered pulling them out but didn't want to get that intimate with them. Eventually we just moved away.
 
Your Port Townsend trip makes me sad. Would have loved the chance to meet you and Joe.

All the boxwood in my neighborhood has that rank smell.

I think the majority of SB these days are fermented with lab designed yeasts.
More grapefruit flavor with a scosh of residual sugar? Go with strand X956.
 
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