**6. Melon liqueur**

192 Distillation – Advances from Modeling to Applications

MSP8: seed+placente 8 days macerate; MSP18: seed+placente 18 days macerate; MSP1Y: seed+placente 1 year macerate; MF8: flesh 8 days macerate; MF18: flesh 18 days macerate; MF1Y: flesh 1 year macerate Fig. 2. Colour differences (ΔE\*) between the macerated double-distilled spirit samples and the unmacerated control spirit (C) and perception levels as per Schmidhofer (1994).

panel and, on the other, to the fact that some panelists preferred a "flatter" spirit with traditional distillation aromas, while others preferred a spirit with an intensely "fruity"

A trial run at industrial scale is the final step in new product development. Maceration time and substrate are important factors, and the latter may include pieces of fruit of different sizes, seeds, placenta, or skins depending on the type of product being manufactured. For that preliminary trial macerations using melon (Hernandez-Gomez et al., 2005b) yielded positive results in terms of extraction of colour and typical melon aromas, suggesting that macerated spirit could be used to produce an authentic liqueur reminiscent of the fruit

Different proportions of fruit were tested based on the results of previous maceration trials,



Maceration time was 16 d, and the sugar content was measured at 0, 4, 8, 12, and 16 days of

Respect to total sugars (fructose, glucose, and saccharose) at the end of the maceration period, the total sugar content in the macerated with melon pieces and seeds+placenta was double that of the batches macerated with seeds+placenta only basically as a result of

melon aroma.

employed in production.

0.28 kg/L [MSPl3]

(MPSPl2)

maceration.

**5.1 Optimization of maceration process** 

taking unmacerated distillate and adding:

At the same time, production of an authentic melon liqueur was addressed. Three melon liqueurs were prepared (Hernández-Gómez et al., 2009). The alcohol content was adjusted to 280 ml/L (28% v/v), and the saccharose content was 100 g/L (CAE, 1997).

The resulting liqueurs were thus:


Sensory analysis of the three liqueurs was based on preference tests in the same conditions as the sensory analyses described above. Nevertheless, none of the liqueurs was statistically preferred at the 95 % significance level, though the macerated melon liqueur received the highest scores. The product was novel and unrelated to the panelists' prior experience, and as a result while some of the panelists preferred the unmacerated distillate on account of its "clean" aroma, others preferred the macerated melon liqueur on account of its fruity aroma and melon flavour.
