6-Methyl-5-hepten-2-one in Vegetable, Fruit and Orchard Flavors

Pomegranate flavors have surged in popularity in recent years and many of them incorporate a few fantasy components. Levels of 30 ppm of 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one help enhance authenticity.
Pomegranate flavors have surged in popularity in recent years and many of them incorporate a few fantasy components. Levels of 30 ppm of 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one help enhance authenticity.

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.

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