6-Methyl-5-hepten-2-one (FEMA# 2707, CAS# 110-93-0) is an interesting, and rather unusual, raw material. It has a number of fairly close relatives. Heptan-2-one is distinctly blue cheese in character, vital in all dairy flavors. It is also somewhat interesting in many other categories but difficult to incorporate. Heptan-4-one is distinctly fruity and pineapple in character and quite different from heptan-2-one. It has a fairly limited area of use in the fruit flavor category.
6-Methyl-5-hepten-2-one sits somewhere in between these two very clear profiles. It has a soft and attractive fruity character, combined with a modest hint of blue cheese. This contrarian combination of nuances might, in theory, render a raw material difficult to use. In this case, it actually widens the range of use to include flavors that heptan-2-one, for example, would struggle to adapt to. Heptan-2-one only really retains a dominant position in dairy flavors.
Note that the dose rates given throughout this article are the levels suggested for use in flavors intended to be dosed at 0.05% in ready-to-drink beverages or in a simple bouillon.
For the full article, please check out the Perfumer & Flavorist+ January 2023 issue.
