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Compound sheet

Aroma molecule · alcohol

2-phenethanol

Smells offlowery, wine-like

Found in 2 ingredients. We hold no measured concentration for it in any of them yet, so we cannot say where it is strong enough to smell.

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Formula
—
Mass
122.16 g/mol
CAS
60-12-8
PubChem
—
Threshold · water
962 ppb
Class
alcohol
Status
Key food odorant

01How little it takes

  • in waterpapers disagree 345
  • in a foodpapers disagree 10,000
  • in alcoholpapers disagree 10,000
  • in wine/beerpapers disagree 14,000
  • in oil 211
  • in starchpapers disagree 125

ppb, log scale · tick = median of published values, bar = full range, from open-access paper tables (not reviewed)

02Where it turns up

  • Fruit1
  • Drinks1

of the 2 ingredients that contain it, by food group

03What it travels with

Too few ingredients to say what it travels with.

What does 2-phenethanol smell like?

The key-food-odorant survey describes it as flowery, wine-like.

It is a key food odorant (intermediary): identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants, which appear in 5–25% of foods. Source: Dunkel et al. 2014, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53, 7124–7143

Which foods contain 2-phenethanol?

We list 2 ingredients that contain it, but presence is not the same as smell. What matters is how much is there compared with how little it takes to notice it. That ratio is the odour activity value (OAV): above 1, you can smell it.

Found in

Measured foods first, then real food profiles, then thin or composite records (marked). The figure beside each is how many compounds that ingredient has in total, not the amount of 2-phenethanol in it. ✓n = sources that recorded the link.

How strong is 2-phenethanol?

Orthonasal, in clean water: 590 ppb to 2600 ppb, median 962 ppb, from 4 published values.

Published thresholds

19 measured values from the literature, grouped by what was measured: a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted, or measured in a real food are different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water · 590 ppb–2600 ppb ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
590 ppb SIDA water Dunkel 2014 —
925 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —
1000 ppb SIDA water Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies —
2600 ppb SIDA water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky) Literature corpus 18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
In a food matrix · 5.0 ppb–390 ppb ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
ThresholdMatrixSource
0.390 ppb SIDA water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork)) Literature corpus
Flagged: 186× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source, shown rather than hidden.
5.0 ppb SIDA water (food: longjing green tea infusion) Literature corpus
140 ppb SIDA water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus
390 ppb SIDA water (food: japanese soy sauce) Literature corpus

Every value in this group cites the same papers: PMID 18570373, PMID 19326859, PMID 26973023 +9 more. Listed once rather than on every row.

Retronasal / in-mouth · 45.0 ppb–122 ppb ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
45.0 ppb SIDA water_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
122 ppb SIDA oil_retronasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
Other matrix · 125 ppb–3600 ppb ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
125 ppb SIDA cellulose Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
211 ppb SIDA oil_orthonasal Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies —
211 ppb SIDA oil (sunflower oil) (food: gouda cheese) Literature corpus 18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
211 ppb SIDA oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans) Literature corpus 18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
211 ppb SIDA oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder) Literature corpus 18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
1000 ppb SIDA wine (food: red wine (cabernet sauvignon)) Literature corpus 18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
2600 ppb SIDA ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine) Literature corpus 18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
2600 ppb SIDA ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged)) Literature corpus 18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
3600 ppb SIDA wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine) Literature corpus 18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium’s licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted, so every number here traces to a citable source.

Thresholds in published tables

MediumMedianRangeValuesPapersPapers agree?
air 564.2 µg/L air 0.0012–3.1e+04 2220 no (6.1 decades)
ethanol solution 1e+04 ppb 0.002–4e+04 2422 no (2.3 decades)
food matrix 1e+04 ppb 0.0005–2.89e+07 10493 no (3.2 decades)
model wine or beer 1.4e+04 ppb 14–2e+05 55 no (4.2 decades)
not applicable 900 ppb 60–1.4e+04 33 no (2.4 decades)
oil 211 ppb 211–2e+03 32 yes
starch or other 125 ppb 125–125 11 one paper
unstated 1200 ppb 0.015–1.4e+06 215191 no (2.9 decades)
water 345 ppb 0.015–9.59e+04 8885 no (2.5 decades)

Numbers printed in open-access papers, grouped by the medium the table states. Median and full range; “agree” means two or more papers whose middle 80% of values sit within 100×. Not reviewed.

Is 2-phenethanol safe to eat?

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1–33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound or its other names. It may still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA); check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

2-phenethanol questions

What does 2-phenethanol smell like?

Sources describe 2-phenethanol as flowery and wine-like. It is one of the key food odorants identified by Dunkel et al. (2014).

Which foods contain 2-phenethanol?

We list 2 ingredients that contain 2-phenethanol.

How strong is 2-phenethanol?

The median of 4 published odour thresholds in water is 962 ppb (range 590 to 2600 ppb).

Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.

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Cite this analysis
Plain text
Compound Kitchen (2026). 2-phenethanol compound data sheet. https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-phenethanol. Accessed 2026-11-03.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compound_2_phenethanol_compound_data_sheet_2026,
  title  = {2-phenethanol compound data sheet},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-phenethanol},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-03}
}

Methodology DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19719459 · CC BY 4.0 · Citations are a request, not a requirement.