A gristmill grinds grain into flour, which raised the expectation that Pineward's Gristmill would smell grainy and powdery. It is hailed in fragcom forums as the "mainstream" masculine of the line, apparently for smelling conservatively woody. Weirdly, Nicholas Nilsson cites "Edelwood oil" from the fictitious tree in the TV miniseries "Over the Garden Wall"as part of the formula, and I have no idea what it's meant to smell like.
What Gristmill actually smells like is a brief bust of cinnamon and woody sweetness in the top accord, followed by a restrained assemblage of cedar and oak, with the pertness of natural labdanum welling up between the floorboards. Eventually cedar and labdanum struggle for dominance, and the heart stage is unavoidably good (these materials smell great), but also a bit too simplistic to be taken seriously. By hour three, all I can smell is the ambergris-like twang of brutish labdanum wearing a victory crown of cedar twigs. It's an accord searching for a perfume, and unfortunately there isn't much of one here.
Despite my reservations about Gristmill, I would still recommend it to anyone who seeks a pleasant woody niche frag for daily wear. I wouldn't buy it myself, but the materials are high quality, the composition is inoffensive, and the end result is a comfortable fragrance that fits most occasions. For once, the cinnamon in the top is well-judged, and despite the cookie-crumble drydown, this stuff always smells pleasant and civilized. It's just too bad its gigantic labdanum wasn't mated to a more sophisticated chypre structure -- Nilsson might have made a good fragrance into something great.