2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol

spicy phenol Key food odorant

Found in 97 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C9H10O2
Molecular weight: 150.17 g/mol
PubChem CID: 332 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: smoky, clove-like.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: clove, smoky, spicy, phenolic
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 3.0 ppb – 60.0 ppb median 5.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 12 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 7786-61-0
Retention index: 1322

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2675
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: 2-METHOXY-4-VINYLPHENOL

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Also filed as

4-vinyl guaiacol 4-vinyl-guaiacol 4-vinylguaiacol

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

clove, smoke, spicy Flavornet Cas

—

clove, curry, peanut, smoky, spicy FlavorDB 2.0

clove, curry, peanut, spicy, smoky FlavorDB 2.0

clove-like FlavorDB 2.0

roasted, sweet FlavorDB 2.0

off-odor FlavorDB 2.0

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

12 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water

3.0 ppb – 60.0 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
3.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
5.0 ppb SIDA	water	Dunkel 2014	—
60.0 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

5.0 ppb – 30.0 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5.0 ppb	water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork))	Literature corpus	—
5.1 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
19.0 ppb	water (food: beef vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	—
19.0 ppb	water (food: pork vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	—
30.0 ppb	water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate))	Literature corpus	—

Retronasal / in-mouth

4.0 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
4.0 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

Other matrix

18.3 ppb – 1042 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
18.3 ppb SIDA	starch	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
50.0 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
1042 ppb SIDA	cellulose	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

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

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (12.05 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 12 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
grape	404700.0	33585 ⚡	—
vanilla	169000.0	14025 ⚡	PMID 37543600
orange	6610.0	549 ⚡	DOI
beer	1700.0	141 ⚡	PMID 19053838
coffee	7.0	0.58	Corpus paper
red wine	6.0	0.50	Corpus paper

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol. Ingredients with a measured concentration come first, ranked by odour activity; the rest follow by how large a share of that ingredient's profile this molecule is. The figure beside each is how many different compounds that ingredient has in total — not the concentration of 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

grape

measured · OAV 33585.06

578 cmpds

orange

measured · OAV 548.55

472 cmpds

beer

measured · OAV 141.08

457 cmpds

coffee

measured · OAV 0.58

507 cmpds