SMELLBOOK REFERENCE · SB-0057
Vinegar
Permanent ID: smellbook: · updated 2026-10-06, revision 3
Character EDITORIAL
Sharp, sour and penetrating, vinegar hits the nose quickly with an acidic sting that can make the eyes water.
Words: sharp, sour, acidic, pungent. Families: Sharp and bitter.
States: aged (VERIFIED). A state says how an entry is met, such as wet, aged or roasted. It does not create a new smell, and it adds no scientific fact by itself: states marked EDITORIAL come from the entry's own records, and only those marked VERIFIED are reported by a VERIFIED claim.
Met in: Kitchen.
Evidence
Scientific evidence
- Key aroma compounds of an aged vinegar (CLM-VINEGAR-001). Zhilei Zhou, Dongzhen Jian, Min Gong, Shenghu Zhu, Guoquan Li, Si Zhang, Fang Zhong & Jian Mao, Characterization of the key aroma compounds in aged Zhenjiang aromatic vinegar by gas chromatography-olfactometry-mass spectrometry, quantitative measurements, aroma recombination and omission experiments, Food Research International, 2020.
Molecules named in these claims: 2-methylpropanal, 2,3-butanedione, 2,4,5-trimethyloxazole, 3-methylbutanoic acid, acetic acid, sotolon, tetramethylpyrazine. A molecule listed here is named in a VERIFIED claim about this smell. It is not presented as the cause of the smell; each claim says what its source supports.
Cite
SmellBook. (2026). Vinegar (revision 3, 2026-10-06). SmellBook Public Atlas. smellbook:smell:vinegar. https://smellbook.com/smells/vinegar
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