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.
