Alcoholic beverages are usually aged in wooden barrels. This technique improves the taste and the aroma of the product. Although oak is the main wood employed to age beverages, other woods as Balm and local woods are largely employed in Brazil, specially by sugar cane spirits small producers. In this work is presented a study of furans and low molecular weight phenolic compounds (gallic acid, 5-hydroxymethylfurufural, furfural, vanillic acid, syringic acid, vanillin, syringaldehyde, coniferaldehyde, sinapaldehyde and coumarin), considered as aging markers in aged sugar cane spirits from small producers of Ceará State (Brazil). The obtained results were compared to reference samples of for export sugar cane spirits and presented good agreement.
sugar cane spirit; aged beverages; phenolics; HPLC; aging markers
