Ethyl Maltol Goes to a Cocktail Party

Welcome to chemical anthropomorphism, where Ethyl Maltol attends a

cocktail party, meets a candy bar, and tries to help cousin Maltol make 

friends. Spritz your favorite gourmand fragrance and join the party. Best

read whilst eating cotton candy, caramels or a hearty slice of bread.

Ethyl Maltol Goes to a Cocktail Party 

By Michelle Krell Kydd

Cotton candy pink

Pantone 9 2 8 6 "C", 

not exactly a taste trigger. 

Let's start over again,

shall we?

Oh really, just call me 

by my true name. 

I’m Ethyl Maltol. 

How do you do? 

Dentist, hmm. 

Do you remember

the "cavity creeps" in 

the Crest toothpaste commercial?

No matter how many times 

they said "we make holes in teeth" 

it never stopped me 

from eating candy in the 70s.

So, you want to know 

my family name? 

I'm a Pyranone. 

Nuanced, yes, I admit it. 

Not that my ancestors 

had anything to do 

with The Inquisition, 

but the name does possess 

the mischief of fire in it. 

Don't worry, I don't smoke 

or keep matches on my person. 

How about you? 

Oh really? 

You’re kidding. 

Really? 

Now that’s a twist. 

You’re a Caramello, 

how sweet. 

A pleasure to meet you. 

Mother was a chemist, 

which explains my name.

If you look it up, 

you’ll see a string of descriptors. 

Sugar, sweet, caramel, jammy 

with a strawberry-like aroma 

redolent of cotton candy.

Yes, that’s me, 

C7H8O3 formally.

A circus, fairground or

seaside boardwalk memory. 

Pick one, two or all three, 

but don’t get your hopes up 

Caramello, 

as we might be related.

The fact you've heard 

about my cousin Maltol 

means we can at least be friends. 

Maltol was named by 

my uncle, mother's brother,

who's also a chemist.

It was mother who gave me

my first lesson

on maltol synonymy;  

"sweet, fruity and caramellic, 

with a hint of 

strawberry and pineapple." 

I oh, none of this makes sense 

unless you remember 

the sweet dry vanilla scent 

of late autumn pine needles

that carpet forest floors.

It’s a distinct aroma 

that replaces the

green coniferous smells 

of spring and summer,

an infrathin between autumn

and the first winter snow.

Did you know that

maltol got its name 

from the smell of roasted malt? 

In our family the metaphor

is even richer than that.

Cousin Maltol's maternal ancestors 

were brewers and bakers. 

Close your eyes, Caramello,

and imagine the smell 

of loaves of bread 

growing golden brown 

in a large oven. 

Now, add another layer of smells 

and picture barley slowly roasting,

heat caramelizing the grains

making genies of smells 

that make children of us all

to the point of forgetting 

that there’s more time behind us 

then there is in front of us, 

as we grow old 

and are slowly betrayed 

by bittersweet strands 

of our own molecules. 

Maltol says it’s why he can’t say no 

to bread, beer or single malt scotch. 

It's also why he collects rare

and obscure conifer essences,

and swears by Siberian larch.

That's a fine-looking glass

of scotch he's enjoying.

You can tell by the 

tulip-shaped glass. 

Shall we join him?

You can ask him about

his curious scent collection.

Just be sure to mention

that I told you about it,

if, and only if, the timing is right.

He's rather sensitive about it.

You'll know that he trusts you

if he shares a carefully folded copy

of a magazine article on pine trees

that he keeps inside his wallet.

He makes a new copy

every few months or so,

as the creases tend to tear.

The article was published

on September 1st 1959, 

which happens to be his birthday.

Sometimes, he jokes and

says it’s his birth certificate.

Notes & Curiosities

Inspiration for this post includes, but is not limited to: the poems of James Schuyler; chemistry; an article in The Atlantic by Nicholas T. Mirtov (September 1, 1959); and the description of a cotton candy smellscape in Joe Hill’s “Dark Carousel,” a short story that appears in Throttle. 

The air was redolent with the cloying perfume of cotton candy, an odor that doesn’t exist in nature and can only be described as 'pink' smell. 

Sugar used to make cotton candy is subject to heat and spun into filaments that are collected on a stick-like paper cone. Modern cotton candy, unlike the original version which looked like a white cloud, is enhanced with flavor-color blends. The smell of warm, spun sugar complemented by artificial flavors and colors shapes flavor expectations and smellscapes. 

Pink vanilla (Silly Nilly) and blue raspberry (Boo-Blue) flavors were created by Gold Medal Products Corporation. (They perfected American cotton candy machines with the inclusion of a sprung base in 1949.) The two historic flavors are archetypal and haven't lost their charm. 

The 2022 version of the Material Safety and Data Sheet (MSDS) for "Silly Nilly Flossugar" lists vanillin and artificial flavors in the ingredient list. Artificial flavors combined with vanillin aren't identified as they're proprietary. For the record, common ingredients used in various brands of pink cotton candy flavor include, but aren't limited to: ethyl maltol, ethyl vanillin, vanillin and furaneol. 

Knowing the identity and aromatic profile of a compound doesn't tell you how ingredients in combination behave with one another. This is where things get sticky for curious fans of cotton candy who aren't flavor chemists. Vignon's profile for nature-identical Strawberry furanone (aka furaneol) shows how versatile a single ingredient can be in flavors and fragrances, which clarifies a few things. 

The role of flavor enhancers in cotton candy can't be underestimated. They play a supporting role by amplifying what's already there. Maltol was isolated from the bark of larch trees and pine needles before it was synthesized in 1947.  Ethyl maltol was produced synthetically after chemists figured out how to synthesize maltol. Both materials enhance flavor and fragrance formulas. 

The application of ethyl maltol in perfumery began with Angel by Thierry Mugler (1992). On the flavor side, ethyl maltol enhances caramel flavor in confectionary. The aroma profile of ethyl maltol and maltol are in the poem that accompanies this post. 

Image Credit: Candy-Floss Coneheads via Ylvers on Pixabay.

Falco Riot and Octyl Fora Go Missing

Falco Riot, creator of Octyl Fora perfume, described the effect of his fragrant creation with a stale, twentieth century trope, “with Octyl Fora you're transformed into a living philter.” 

When questioned about the ingredients used in the AI-generated fragrance, Riot exhaled an aloof sigh, detaching himself from the question with another query in an attempt to appear avant-garde.

 “We're all made of memory and metaphor, wouldn't you say?” 

Eight months later, everyone who attended the Octyl Fora fragrance launch went missing, including Riot. Ten drums containing Octyl Fora concentrate, stored in an obscure warehouse district in the city, also disappeared. 

The team responsible for collecting evidence cracked the numeric code on the warehouse door. The numbers spelled “it smells" using an A1Z26 cipher. 9*20*19*13*5*12*12*19.

They should have known better. The code wasn’t a barrier; it was an invitation. 

Investigators examined surfaces in the empty, temperature-controlled room where drums of fragrance concentrate were stored. Handheld sensors analyzed walls, floors, cabinets and doors. 

Each device lost power after four attempts to read a surface. None of them detected an unusual compound before they stopped working. 

Clary Otafo, who'd worked with the team for 10 years, looked at his colleagues and rolled his eyes. 

“Emperor's new clothes, eh?” 

His eyes kept rolling. A low hiss escaped between his teeth. He fell to the floor and stopped breathing. A translucent vapor rose up from the floor and outlined his body like a chalk mark.

Ray Focolt, the youngest member of the team, closed the warehouse door as his colleagues fled ahead of him. The knob was ice-cold and stuck to his palm before the latch bolt released, and he could relax his grip. 

By the time he got into his car, Focolt barely remembered moving one foot in front of the other to get there. That’s when he noticed a strange feeling in his right hand, the same hand that closed the warehouse door. 

The skin of his palm was slightly raised in a quarter-shaped circle at the center. In the middle of the circle there was a line drawing of a nose. An angled slash ran through it. 

Focolt blinked a few times and looked at his palm in disbelief. 

The car seat next to him sank in the center. The impression was punctuated by a decompressing squeak of leather. Focolt was too busy looking at his hand to notice.

The image on his palm faded into itself and shimmered as it disappeared. He was about to start the car when he sensed someone breathing next to him.

“I know you can’t smell, Ray.” 

“What the hell?!” 

The radio turned on. Digital numbers veered left of the dial and stopped at the sound of John Lennon’s voice: 

 

We're playing those mind games together,

Pushing the barrier, planting seed. 

Playing the mind guerrilla,

Catching the mantra "peace on earth".

We all been playing those mind games forever, 

Some kind of Druid dude, lifting the veil. 

Doing the mind guerrilla, 

Some call it magic, the search for the grail. 

The radio went silent at “grail” as the passenger side door opened with a slow deliberate creak.

“Until we meet again, Ray. I have a little something to tell you.” 

Focolt shut the door, turned on the ignition, and sped off. He never got ticketed for running four red lights in a row on his way home. He didn’t get much sleep that night either.

Notes & Curiosities:

Artificial intelligence and perfumery were explored in a 2014 post titled "The Unstoppered Bottle of Perfume". "Falco Riot and Octyl Fora Go Missing" is infused with a 2024 ethos and hints of science fiction. The story is an intentional fragment. I'm formulating a scent to go along with it for a future Smell & Tell program at the Ann Arbor District Library. 

There are non-fictive elements in "Falco Riot and Octyl Fora Go Missing," one of which is the use of handheld sensors. They exist in real life and are rapidly improving. Portable spectroscopy allows samples to be taken in the field versus the lab. Curious? Get all the nerdy details here.

Scent in Film: The Scent of Earth by Amit Dutta

Scene in an Indian perfume shop from The Scent of Earth, a short film 
by Amit Dutta (2021). The film captures the essence of episodic memory.

The Scent of Earth by Amit Dutta utilizes stop-motion animation to explore the smell of rain on parched earth at the start of India’s monsoon rain. The narrator in the film articulates encounters with the aroma in childhood memory vignettes that reawaken and crystalize when he discovers a flask of mitti attar ("earth perfume") at a bazaar by chance. The essence, a codistillation of earthen pottery and sandalwood, is imbued with the scent of the landscape and a history of encounter with a centuries-old style of perfumery.

Smells, as an experience, aren't permission based. They are perceived as the autonomic result of breathing. We neurologically detect smells before we can describe them and it happens in a flash. Molecules that comprise smells make physical contact with olfactory receptors, generating memories and emotions before they can be expressed as language. James McHugh captures the liminal quality of smell when he writes: "Smell has the strange, almost paradoxical, nature of being both a remote sense and a contact sense." 

Amit Dutta brings a clear understanding of the embodied aspect of smell throughout The Scent of Earth. The voice and storytelling style of the narrator (it’s the filmmaker's) are gentle, relaxed and guileless. This makes the portrayal of smell relatable to anyone who’s ever experienced a meaningful scent in all its timeless profundity. Mitti attar is the catalyst for awakening memory and inspiring storytelling, which in turn touches on the art of perfume making in Kannauj. It’s a thoughtful admixture of scent, culture and film.

Mitti kulhad (earth cups) made from unfinished clay are fired in a kiln, broken into shards, and used to make mitti attar. Whole cups, which are designed for drinking tea, impart an earthy flavor. 

Viewers experience the transporting quality of smells through the speaker’s visual and articulated memories as they follow the narrative arc of the film. The script has a literary flavor when extracted from the film, which is just over two minutes long: 

"In my childhood, one smell that affected me the most was the scent of the earth when it rained for the first time after a hot summer. The smell was so subtle that sometimes I wondered if it existed at all. 

Everybody felt it, but no one ever expressed it. It was difficult to articulate that scent. I did not pay much attention to it and eventually forgot about it. 

Many years later, in a small bazaar, I saw a small bottle of perfume. The label was in Hindi and it said ‘Earth Perfume'. It made me curious when I smelled it; it was exactly the same smell that I experienced in my childhood. 

With it, memories of my childhood also came back, not as one particular incident, but as various assorted images. I saw myself going back to school in a horse-cart, my mother teaching at the same school, the school that was close to the border. 

There were a few destroyed tanks and bunkers, reminiscent of old wars. The broken tanks and bunkers had gathered dust, colorful flowers grew on them. Rain fell on those flowers and gave out the same scent. 

The shopkeeper told me that this scent was made in Kannauj, where they have been making it for centuries. What fascinated me was the scent, which I even failed to spell out, was experienced by someone in ancient India, who tried to capture it and succeeded! 

I bought that bottle, and with it my childhood—in a small bottle."

The duality of terrestrial experience (the smell of rain on parched earth) and the ability to distill the terrestrial (sandalwood and shards of fired earthen clay) bookend the narrator's sense of wonder at the close of the film. The Scent of Earth is a filmic ode to its namesake. What we are left with is proof that the extraordinary can be found in something as ordinary as dry earth that crumbles between the fingers like dust, and smells of the heavens in the rain.

Camel skin attar bottles from Kannauj are known as kuppi (aka khupi and kuppa). They're designed for aging attar. The skin breathes and allows water to evaporate. Mature attar is decanted and sold as perfume. 

Notes and Curiosities

The Scent of Earth is narrated and directed by Amit Dutta. Animation by Ayswayra S. Dutta. Sound by Sukanta Majumdar. English subtitles are available for the Hindi language film, which is 2:09 minutes long. The short film was uploaded to YouTube by Matra Publications on December 7, 2021, and is available for viewing at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJF0N0E7H4Q. 

Mitti attar is a codistillation of clay shards in sandalwood oil. The perfume resembles the smell of rain on parched earth, and possesses a distinctive touch of woody sweetness. Parched earth that accumulates moisture from rain smells more intense in nature than the aromatic outcome of a codistillation of clay shards in sandalwood. The profile of co-distilled "earth" in aged mitti attar smells earthy, dusty, and flinty. It's a softer aromatic expression of geosmin (aka petrichor) that emanates from freshly turned soil that’s familiar to gardeners and farmers. 

McHugh James. Sandalwood and Carrion : Smell in Indian Religion and Culture. Oxford University Press 2012. [A quote from page 25 is referenced in the second paragraph of this article.]

Shulman, David. “The Scent of Memory in Hindu South India.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 13 (1987): 122–33. [Read the section on vāsanā in the lower left-hand column, on page 123. It goes into beautiful detail with regard to the nature of smell memory from a Hindu perspective.]

Algorithm This: A Math of the Senses

Untitled (c.1980) ©Paulina Peavey Estate / Andrew Eldin Gallery, NYC

A Math of the Senses 

by Michelle Krell Kydd

"It’s through sound that we enter the works, and that we travel across time." —Pascale Bodet, critic and filmmaker, on The Seventh Walk (Saatvin Sair) a film by Amit Dutta (2013) 

Assignment.

Substitute another sense in place of “sound”. 

Deduct. 

Deduce. 

Consider the counterintuitive. 

For this is a math of the senses. 

Begin with the end in mind, the end of the quote. 

Traveling across time a is metaphor for recollecting.  

And smell is memory's sense.  

Ah, but who and what shapes memories?  

To answer this you become a fortune teller. 

A teller of tales. 

Are you ready?

Let's begin. 

Ask your family, your friends, the ancestors, the deity. 

The artists, plants, insects, animals. 

Sun, moon, stars, the planets. 

The movement of molecules and the diasporic. 

The inhalations and exhalations of everyday life.  

What is dream, what is truth? 

Paradox. 

The eyes are open and shut for both. 

Smell, however, is always open.  

From the first breath to the last.  

Return to the original question. 

Sound closes shop at our ending.

Just before the breath stops.

A mortal proof. 

Derive conclusion accordingly.

Notes & Curiosities:

Poem to be read out loud while smelling a 3% dilution of mitti attar during the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse. Listen if you wish to see. Smell if you wish to remember.

Introductory quote at the start of "A Math of the Senses" is from an article titled "In the Ship of Amit Dutta" on The Seventh Art, a blog by film critic and translator Srikanth Srinivasan.