2-phenylethanol

floral alcohol Key food odorant

Found in 494 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H10O
Molecular weight: 122.16 g/mol
PubChem CID: 6054 — 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: flowery, wine-like.

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

Properties

Odor description: honey, floral, rose
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 590 ppb – 2600 ppb median 962 ppb · 4 published values · see all 28 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 60-12-8
Retention index: 1206

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

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

2-phenyl ethanol phenethyl alcohol phenethylalcohol

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.

honey, floral, rose shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

apple FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

bitter, floral, honey, lilac, rose, rose dried, rose flower, rose water, spice FlavorDB 2.0

467

honey, spice, rose, lilac, floral, rose dried, rose flower, rose water, bitter FlavorDB 2.0

almond, apple, chemical FlavorDB 2.0

honey 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

28 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

590 ppb – 2600 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
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

0.390 ppb – 390 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.390 ppb SIDA	water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork))	Literature corpus	18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
1.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
1.4 ppb SIDA	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
5.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
7.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: soy sauce)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
7.4 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	19326859
11.2 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	18570373, 26973023, 33995294 +4
34.8 ppb SIDA	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
87.5 ppb	water (food: cheese)	Literature corpus	42160145
140 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
390 ppb SIDA	water (food: japanese soy sauce)	Literature corpus	18570373, 19326859, 26973023 +9
1491 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	30972045, 41048468
Flagged: 133× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1573 ppb SIDA	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	18570373, 41613919
Flagged: 140× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Retronasal / in-mouth

45.0 ppb – 122 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
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

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
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 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 (61.1275 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 28 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
white wine	300000.0	4908 ⚡	DOI
chia	158660.0	2596 ⚡	PMID 36619396
beer	98540.0	1612 ⚡	DOI
grape	51460.0	842 ⚡	PMID 34623142
spirit	44000.0	720 ⚡	DOI
jmhj	29306.8	479 ⚡	Corpus paper
cocoa	5645.0	92.3 ⚡	Corpus paper
lime	1918.0	31.4 ⚡	Corpus paper
wine	1770.0	29.0 ⚡	PMID 30704594
brandy	1050.0	17.2 ⚡	PMID 34299643
cheese	375.8	6.15	PMID 39360317
whey	120.0	1.96	—
red wine	100.0	1.64	Corpus paper
rice	81.2	1.33	Corpus paper
rum	26.4	0.43	—
bread	15.1	0.25	—
tea	5.1	0.08	—
honey	1.0	0.02	—
soybean sauce	0.2	0.00	—

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-phenylethanol. 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-phenylethanol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

white wine

measured · OAV 4907.77

312 cmpds

chia

measured · OAV 2595.56

206 cmpds

beer

measured · OAV 1612.04

457 cmpds

grape

measured · OAV 841.85

578 cmpds