What, exactly, does blackwood smell like? Cedar smells like cedar, pine smells like pine, and so forth. So, I assume that most woods have a scent.
Does blackwood have an aroma reminiscent of . . . sardines?
It’s not offensive, but it’s there. Eau de smoked fish.
You’re on to something there, Peggy! The first time I smelled a blackwood flute, it reminded me of a tea I used to drink that was made from smoked tea leaves. It was called Lapsang Souchong, I believe. A very strangely flavored tea, definitely an aquired taste. Don’t they also flavor Scotch whiskey with smoked peat?
I was surprised too at the smell!
Quite often the oil with which players oil their flute has gone off. Most oils go rancid at room temperature. Then the flute stinks. I bought a flute once which reeked from rancid oil but the person from whom I bought it claimed not to notice the odor.
Best is to keep your oil refrigerated, to oil lightly and wipe off the excess, and to keep your flute clean but not totally dry.
Actually, it smells like licorice. Just a big piece of licorice…
That is why I use comercial bore oil, you don’t have the oil going ransid.
Jon
Awwwk! It’s not rancid oil smell. It’s not even my oil. I noticed it just after getting the flute, before I’d oiled it. It’s a very clean and tidy flute.
And my oil isn’t rancid, either . . . hmpf.
Ah ha! Lapsang souchong! Yes. And licorice yup, I can see that, too.
Sooo, I’m not the only one . . . 
Thanks!
P.S. Licorice Altoids are yummy. And so very useful.
I work in the same office with a woman who finds me irritating to such an extent that I deliberately cultivate it just for the entertainment value. She now has a fixation about my licorice Altoids, insisting that she can smell an opened tin clean out into the hallway. I now purchase them in bulk. She also claims to be able to smell my plain oatmeal, forcing me to eat it several times a day. She alternates complaints about these things with rude comments about my lack of fashion sense and disbelief that I ever wear makeup.
She has a fixation on a gentleman down the hall who whistles. So, in between airing out the Altoids and oatmeal, I make a practice of whistling his tunes, very softly, causing her to spring up and dart to the door.
That only works well every day or so. On alternate days, I breathlessly announce that the Fed Ex guy just went into this or that office . . . she’ll be gone for ten minutes trying to throw herself across his path.
She also hates ITM. I do think I will need to mention that my flute smells like licorice. That should about double the aggravation factor of airing out a tin of Altoids.
Please don’t take it amiss if I suggest that taking pleasure
in causing another’s discomfort, for the entertainment
value, is mean.
Well, throwing in the apple of discord to create conflict is mean, but this is not of the same degree. Perhaps we could call baiting a coworker thusly the crabapple of discord.
(Edited to add: …baiting an annoying coworker thusly…) 
must admit I’ve never had a smelly flute! Well - not that I notice anyway - I lightly oil mine with almond oil now and again - no problem yet…
where other smells are concerned Peggy you might try rice cakes - colleagues of mine thought they smelled disgusting!! :lol:
Sarah
My cocobolo Hammy still has a faint scent of roses. Mmmm
Just to be clear, I appreciate that this other person is behaving
obnoxiously and that the response isn’t gratuitous.
Abell blackwood whistles have a distinctive smell, which
I thought was blackwood but now think must be
something in which he soaks them.
I never noticed an odor from my highland pipes (which are blackwood as well) other than the bag seasoning. . . which is an awful smell. It mellows over time though into something not totally unpleasant.
Well. luckily for me (or unhappily, if you want to look at it that way) I have NO sense of smell whatsoever…
My boss teases me that I have a tumor on my first cranial nerve…hope not.
Mary
I trust that it is those around me have trouble with their 1st cranial nerves.
Don’t take things too literally Jim ( except Mr Bush’s criminal tendencies ).
OK