Shakti Sandal Wood Oil Distillers & Perfumers

Our distillery is located on P. T. Shivdulare Lal Mishra Marg, which most people just call Ajaypal Road. It’s an old part of town. The air around our building usually smells like sandalwood, even when we aren't running the boilers. We spend our days working with the wood and the copper stills. It’s a hot and messy process. The floors are often wet, and there is a lot of steam in the air. We don't have a fancy showroom with glass cases. Most of what we have is just old wooden benches and big metal vats. The walls are stained from years of smoke and oil. Our office is just a tiny room with a heavy wooden desk and some old chairs for when neighbors stop by to chat. We don’t use any high-tech gadgets to figure out when the oil is ready; it’s mostly just about the smell and the timing we’ve learned over the years. It’s a slow business. You can’t rush the distillation. We sit outside on the steps when the heat inside gets to be too much. The street outside is narrow, so it’s always a bit of a struggle when a delivery truck comes to drop off logs. We’ve been on this road for a long time, and everyone knows the scent coming from our place. It's not a corporate operation, just a few of us keeping the stills going every day.