Alcoholic Flavourings

Fennel oil is mainly used in flavoring oral care products and in pharmaceutical preparations. A reasonably quantity of fennel oil is used for the production of pure anethole for flavouring alcoholic beverages (anise liqueurs) [513dj. FCT 1976 (17) p.529 [8006-84-6], [84625-39-8]. 

Essence of Vanilla.—The substance sold under this name is, properly, a spirituous extract of the vanilla bean. Many samples, however, are little more than alcoholic solutions of artificial vanillin, coloured with caramel. Some samples, which cannot be described as adulterated, contain a little coumarin or other odorous substance, added to varj- the characteristic vanillin odour and flavour somewhat. 

These can be the natural material itself one example would be pieces of vanilla pod or an extract, e.g. vanilla extract. Extracts can be prepared in several ways. One is to distil or to steam distil the material of interest. Another is to extract the raw material with a solvent, e.g. ethyl alcohol. Alternatively, some materials are extracted by coating the leaves of a plant with cocoa butter and allowing the material of interest to migrate into the cocoa butter. These techniques are also used in preparing perfumery ingredients, indeed materials like orange oil are used in both flavours and perfumes. 

Whether the flavour used is natural, nature identical, synthetic, or a mixture it has to be dosed into the product. Although some flavourings are very intense the volume added to the product has to be large enough for the equipment or the people to add it with sufficient accuracy. The flavour of course has to be uniformly distributed in the product. This normally means producing the flavour as a solution. Flavours are prepared for a particular use. As an example, citrus oil based flavours can be dissolved in various alcohols. 

There is a practice of making holes in this sort of cake and pouring in spirits such as whisky, brandy or rum. While this may be done to enhance the flavour it will almost certainly improve the keeping properties. The alcoholic mixture will not only reduce the water activity as ethanol has considerable mould inhibitory and antibacterial properties. 

Headspace analysis involves examination of the vapours derived from a sample by warming in a pressurized partially filled and sealed container. After equilibration under controlled conditions, the proportions of volatile sample components in the vapours of the headspace are representative of those in the bulk sample. The system, which is usually automated to ensure satisfactory reproducibility, consists of a thermostatically heated compartment in which batches of samples can be equilibrated, and a means of introducing small volumes of the headspace vapours under positive pressure into the carrier-gas stream for injection into the chromatograph (Figure 4.25). The technique is particularly useful for samples that are mixtures of volatile and non-volatile components such as residual monomers in polymers, flavours and perfumes, and solvents or alcohol in blood samples. Sensitivity can be improved by combining headspace analysis with thermal desorption whereby the sample vapours are first passed through an adsorption tube to pre-concentrate them prior to analysis. 

Caramel means the brown products intended for colouring, not the sugary product obtained by heating sugars which is used for flavouring food such as confectionery, pastry and alcoholic drinks. 

Weinreich B, Nitz S, Influences of processing on the enantiomeric distribution of chiral flavour compounds, Part A Linalyl acetate and terpene alcohols, Chem MikrobiolTechnol Lebensm 14 117—124, 1992. 

Proc Okla Acad Sci 1974 54 34-35. Demole, E., and C. Demole. A chemical study of hurley tobacco flavour Nicotiarui tabacum). VII. Identification and synthesis of twelve irregular terpenoids related to solanone, including 7,8-dioxabicycIo[3,2,l]-octane and 4,9-dioxabicycIo[3.3.1 Jnonane derivatives. Helv Chim Acta 1975 58 1867. Bharadwaj, B. V., S. Takayama, T. Yamada, and A. Tanimura. N -nitro-sonornicotine in Japanese tobacco products. Gann 1975 66 585. Randolph, H. R. Gas chromatographic determination of nicotine in an isopropyl alcohol extract of smoke particulate matter. Tobacco 1974 176 44-Yung, K. H., and D. H. Northcote. Enzymes in the walls of mesophyll cells of tobacco leaves. Biochem J 1975 151 141. 

Flavouring agents— Flavouring agents e.g. peppermint, spearmint, menthol, cinnamon, oil of wintergreen (methyl salicylate) are used in conjunction with alcohol and humectants to overcome disagreeable taste. 

At the start of the twenty-first century, 250,000 million litres of wine were being consumed annually, valued at about 100 billion. The market is growing by about 5% annutilly. Wine is a chemically complex mixture but it is not the major constituents (water, alcohol, sugar and organic acids) that give a wine its value but the minor ones— the plant-derived NPs or compormds derived from them. It is the NPs that give a wine a rmique flavour or odour hence wine experts are simply well-trained, capable NP detectors. 

The MHLW is currently evaluating several individual flavouring substances not covered by the aforementioned groups but that are of commercial interest. Most of these substances are lower alcohols, aldehydes and pyrazines. As soon as the evaluation has finished, the result will be published and in positive cases the substances will by added to the list of permitted substances. 

Fig. 7.3 Some aliphatic alcohols, aldehydes and ketones which are important flavour compounds in fruits and vegetables that mainly contribute with green and/or sweet notes...

The typical flavour of sour cherries is produced during processing into wine, liqueur, juice, jam or fruit sauce. Benzaldehyde has been determined to be the most important aroma compound in sour cherries [82], but benzyl alcohol, eu-genol and vanillin are also important flavour compounds (Table 7.2, Fig. 7.5) [83]. Growing and storage conditions affect the concentration of benzaldehyde, benzyl alcohol, eugenol and vanillin [83, 84], and cold and rainy weather produces sour cherries with a less delicate sour cherry aroma [83]. 

The berry or the small fruits consist of strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, black currant, blueberry, cranberry and elderberry. The volatiles responsible for the flavour of small fruits are esters, alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, terpenoids, furanones and sulfur compounds (Table 7.3, Figs. 7.1-7.7). As fruit ripen, the concentration of aroma volatiles rapidly increases, closely following pigment formation [43]. 

Sugars, acids and aroma compounds contribute to the characteristic strawberry flavour [85]. Over 360 different volatile compounds have been identified in strawberry fruit [35]. Strawberry aroma is composed predominately of esters (25-90% of the total volatile mass in ripe strawberry fruit) with alcohols, ketones, lactones and aldehydes being present in smaller quantities [85]. Esters provide a fruity and floral characteristic to the aroma [35,86], but aldehydes and furanones also contribute to the strawberry aroma [85, 87]. Terpenoids and sulfur compounds may also have a significant impact on the characteristic strawberry fruit aroma although they normally only make up a small portion of the strawberry volatile compounds [88, 89]. Sulfur compounds, e.g. methanethiol. 

The fruity-sweet flavours in elderberry juice and products have primarily been associated with aliphatic esters such as ethyl 2-methylbutanoate, ethyl 3-methylbutanoate, methyl heptanoate, methyl octanoate, methyl nonanoate, alcohols (2-methyl-l-propanol, 2-methyl-1-butanol and 3-methyl-1-butanol) and the aldehydes pentanal, heptanal and octanal [127, 129, 130, 132],... 

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