Menthofuran has a distinctive earthy-minty character — cooler and more medicinal than menthol, with a musty, slightly bready furan facet underneath. It smells like the darker, damp underside of peppermint leaf rather than the bright top of it, with a faint camphoraceous edge.AI · claude-opus-4-7
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Perfume and Flavor Chemicals, page 781.
Colorless mobile liquid.
Very slightly soluble in water, soluble in alcohol and oils.
Sweet, haylike-minty odor, sometimes referred to as 'Lactone'-odor. Moderate to poor tenacity. The initial impression is that of a very pungent and sharp odor.
The taste — in dilutions lower than 10 ppm — is slightly bitter, almost tarry and not very pleasant.
This material has found a little use in flavor compositions, mainly as a minor component in artificial 'Peppermint' oils, based upon Mentha arvensis oils.
Menthofuran is generally considered an undesirable component of Peppermint oil, and oils of 'low Menthofuran content' are often preferred for flavor.
1) by isolation from 'high-Menthofuran'-bearing Mentha piperita oils. 2) from Pulegone by treatment with Sulfuric acid, Sulfuric anhydride and Acetic anhydride, followed by pyrolysis.