Abstract
As one of the oldest distillates in the world, flavor compounds of Chinese Baijiu (Chinese liquor) were extremely complex. Propyl lactate was firstly detected by direct injection and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in 72 Chinese Baijius. The objectives were to detect the contents of propyl lactate and evaluate its contribution to the aroma of Chinese Baijiu based on odor activity values (OAVs). The levels of propyl lactate in these distillates were determined by internal standard method and selective ion monitoring (SIM), which ranged from 0.050 to 1.900 mg∙L−1 under investigation. Its detection threshold was determined by Three-Alternative Forced-Choice (3-AFC) and curve fitting (CF), which was 0.740 mg∙L−1 in 38% ethanol solution. The contribution of propyl lactate on the aroma of these distillate drinks was evaluated by their odor activity values (OAVs), which varied from 0.066 to 4.440. The OAVs of propyl lactate were found to exceed 1 in 13 Chinese Baijius, including 50° Jingzhi Guniang 5 years (4.440), 52° Jingzhi Guniang 10 years (3.024), Jingyanggang (2.568), Xianghe Ronghe Shaofang (2.313), and 1956 Laolang (1.431), which indicated that propyl lactate was one of odor-active components in these Chinese Baijius.
Highlights
Chinese Baijiu (Chinese liquor) is one of the oldest distillates in the world, and it is the most popular spirits in China with the annual production of about 4 million metric tons
The mass spectra of an unknown compound shown at 17.4 min in sample 33 and propyl lactate standard were presented as Figure 1, and the differential spectrum of them was located at the bottom, which indicated the unknown compound shown at 17.4 min being matched with propyl lactate
TICs are shown, one is the unknown compound in sample 33, and the other is propyl lactate standard (b TIC) at 17.4 min
Summary
Chinese Baijiu (Chinese liquor) is one of the oldest distillates in the world, and it is the most popular spirits in China with the annual production of about 4 million metric tons. The grain raw materials, such as wheat, sorghum, corn, rice or glutinous rice, are cooked with steam. Some saccharification and fermentation agents (“DaQu” or “XiaoQu”) are added into the cooked grain matrix. The liquors are distilled out with steam from the fermentation products after several months or years of fermentation [1]. The fresh distillates need to be aged for a long time in order to balance the flavors. The final commercialized products are blended with aged distillate drinks, fresh distillate drinks and water based on certain ratios according to different formulations of spirit drinks [2]
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