First approach to the characterization of a traditional alcoholic drink "Aguard...

• Author(s): Nunes, D. ; Anjos, O. ; Caldeira, I.
• Date: 2012
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.11/1391
• Origin: Repositório Científico do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco
• Subject(s): Alcoholic drink; aguardente de zimbro
• Document Type: Conference Object
• Language: English

Description

The alcoholic drink called “aguardente de zimbro” is normally presented at touristic documentation about “Serra da Estrela” and included in the food heritage of the region. However, there is a lack of technical and scientific information about this beverage. This work intends to achieve a first characterization of this product concerning its technology, and its sensory properties and physico-chemical characteristics. A few number of commercial samples of this product and other alcoholic beverages made with juniper were analyzed. It was performed several analytical determinations to the samples, namely alcoholic strength, dry matter, total acidity, fixed acidity, volatile acidity, pH, chromatic characteristics, methanol, acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate in order to characterize analytically the juniper spirits, namely the Portuguese ones. It was also done the descriptive sensory analysis of the beverages. Based on the results the three Portuguese commercial beverages “Aguardente de zimbro”, which are currently in the market, seem to be made from three different alcoholic distillates (grape marc spirit, wine spirit and arbutus spirit). The three commercial beverages presented a yellowish colour. However, the three beverages presented a quite different flavour profile, so further research is needed in order to establish and understand the sensory profile of the traditional beverage.