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Mandy Aftel, a perfumer in Berkeley, Calif., is rarely at a loss for words when describing ambergris. “It’s beyond comprehension how beautiful it is,” she says. “It’s transformative. There’s a shimmering quality to it. It reflects light with its smell. It’s like an olfactory gemstone.”
Ambergris, a waxy excretion formed in the intestines of sperm whales (thanks to their inability to digest squid beaks), is one of the most sought-after substances in the world. Ambergris sells for roughly $20 a gram, gold for $30. It has been used as a cure for pestilence, and, according to 10th century Muslim trader Ibn Hawqal, as an aphrodisiac. In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville claimed that ambergris, “an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale,” was “largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair powders, and pomatum.” More recently, it has appeared in overpriced delicacies, such as the $4,700 mince pie created last month for charity by U.K. food designer Andrew Stellitano, and even more overpriced perfumes. In 2005, a 200-year-old fragrance originally made for Marie Antoinette, which featured ambergris as a main ingredient, was reproduced in limited quantities for $11,000 a bottle.
Ambergris has made the occasional beachcomber rich, as it did this last summer when 40 kilograms of ambergris were discovered on the North Island of New Zealand, rumored to net $400,000 for the finders. Adrienne Beuse, the owner of New Zealand-based Ambergris Essentials, an international trader of raw ambergris, claims it’s one of the few recession-proof commodities. “If I have the supply,” she says, “I’ll always be able to sell it.”
Like truffle sourcing, the ambergris trade is shrouded in secrecy. Chris Kemp, a neuroscientist from Grand Rapids, Mich., spent years investigating the ambergris business, which he documents in his book, Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris, to be published by the University of Chicago Press this May. “If you believe what you read in the media,” he says, “you’d think ambergris is something that people just find by accident.” The truth, he claims, is far more clandestine. “There’s a whole underground network of full-time collectors and dealers trying to make their fortune in ambergris. They know the beaches and the precise weather conditions necessary for ambergris to wash up on the shore.” And when whale-poop gold is on the line, he says, “it can get violent.”
Several years ago, Ross Sherman, a longtime ambergris collector in New Zealand, was hit by a car on Baylys Beach, driven by one of his main competitors, John James Vodanovich. Sherman fought back with a PVC pipe and escaped with minor injuries. A court case soon followed. Neither man denied many details of the hit-and-run incident other than what they were both actually doing at the beach. According to the New Zealand Herald, Sherman was purportedly “kite-fishing” and Vodanovich was identified as a “self-employed seaweed gatherer.” Beuse, who employs what she calls “dedicated collectors and beachcombers” to supply her with ambergris, isn’t surprised by the territorial aggression. “There aren’t too many professions where you could go to work and stumble upon $30,000 one morning,” she says. “It doesn’t happen every day, but it does happen.”
To outsiders, it may seem like easy money—ambergris can wash ashore anywhere there are sperm whales, which is pretty much every ocean shoreline—but identifying the stuff is often an exercise in futility. According to Kemp, some strange things have been mistaken for ambergris, including dog feces, rotting seagulls, old whale blubber, eroded rubber, and at least one decomposed sheep carcass. Many ambergris hunters don’t even know which whale orifice it comes from. “Despite what most people think, it’s not vomit,” Kemp says. “That’s one of the biggest misnomers about ambergris. Unfortunately, it comes out the other end.”
