# THE PROFILE
This one is orange/Mandarin on top, with sage that is a hint smokey and a hint spicy. In the mid you'll get a little chestnut and lavender, and mostly caramel, amber, and Tonka at the base. There's also a woody note hidden somewhere, but you'll have to search for it really hard, so let's just say it's not there at all. It's mostly sweet, nutty, and rich... Playful and sexy at the same time.
This is a profile I can claim to be almost an expert of. Not only have I tried the OG (but unfortunately I don't own a decant of it), and tried pretty most clones available for it, but also the twists (like Sky Elixir and Sheikh Al Shuyukh Supreme, which I own full bottles of). Up until today, Rue Broca Hooked Pour Homme was the winner, and Cuba Hot was best value. It's the only Cuba I recommend to people, as it's got okay quality, and good performance (unlike other Cubas, that suffer from performance and sometimes quality issues). Yes, I know most of you have Mandarin Sky, but that one doesn't win any metric. Cuba has better value (unless it goes against the 200ml Mandarin sky, and then Cuba loses the value lead), and Hooked has better performance and quality. This is going to be a very hard test for MBRP, as the competition is very low priced, good quality, AND well performing.
# MBRP Profile analysis:
This one is almost identical to Hooked, only it almost completely removes the Amber from that profile, and I kind of like it even better this way. Amber almost always gives my a sour "after-smell" for some reason,but only at the first hour, and when I smell it point blank... It doesn't do that if I'm more than 3" away from skin. They're all VERY similar though, so please don't buy one of you have the other. Even Sheikh Al Shuyukh Supreme is redundant to that profile, even though it's a (very minor) twist (slightly more lavender, slightly less caramel).
**Wife Alert**: Wife picked Cuba a Hot from the 4 clones, but she prefers the twists instead of the clones as well. She says the straight clones are "an assault on my nose from how sweet they are".
# Performance:
Slightly better than Mandarin Sky (which isn't weak at all), and maybe slightly under or almost matchig Hooked Pour Homme. Strong (but not nuclear) projection first 2 hours, then medium large scent bubble for another 1-2 hours, that becomes smaller as time goes by until it's a skin scent at hour 5-6, and stays on skin as a skin scent for 12 hours. Funny this isn't an Extrait, but performs better than some of MBRP's Extraits I've tested. The "Extrait" labeling is mostly marketing anyways (on ANY fragrance), so it's important to test them.
# Quality: 7.5
Higher than average clone quality. At first, Note separation is great and note realism is almost designer quality. Problem is, it loses some of its structure after the hour 2-3 mark, and loses most of the top notes faster than the others (1 hour in).
