Bitter Fennel Oil

#### Fennel Oil, Bitter. The **Fennel**** ****Oils**** **can be classified in two groups: - The oils from **Bitter**** ****Fennel**** **and - The oil from **Sweet**** ****Fennel**. Bitter fennel can be derived from the cultivated herb or from the wild growing herb. The fruits of the two herbs will yield essential oils of different composition. - The Bitter Fennel Oil from **wild**growing herb is steam distilled from the upper part of the plant when the fruits just begin to ripen (compare with dill weed oil). Distillation takes place only in the areas where the bitter fennel grows wild: France, Spain, Portugal and North Africa, particularly in Morocco. This oil is not the bitter fennel oil as it is known commercially (see below). The total annual production hardly exceeds 10 metric tons. **Bitter**** ****Fennel**** ****Oil**** **from **wild**growing fennel herb is a yellowish to pale orange-brown, mobile liquid which has a sharp peppery-camphoraceous odor and a spicy, faintly sweetish dryout note. The oil finds some use in the flavoring of pickles, etc., but it is mostly used in the perfuming of industrial products, so-called technical perfumes, etc. because of its excellent masking effect and great odor power. **Bitter Fennel**** ****Herb Oil**** **(1) is occasionally contaminated (rather than adulterated) with the oil from "harvest fennel", a smaller umbellifer which grows wild and abundantly in Morocco and the Mediterranean countries and is found in the fennel fields, too. - **Bitter Fennel Oil **from **Cultivated **bitter fennel is the bitter fennel oil commercially offered. It is steam distilled from the crushed seed (fruit) of the cultivated **Foeniculum**** ****Vulgare**** **(and the variety vulgare of the subspecies capillaceum). The plant is identical to the above mentioned plant which grows wild. **Bitter Fennel **is cultivated in Argentina, China, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Roumania, Spain, U.S.A., U.S.S.R. and, on a limited (domestic) scale, in a great number of other countries. Distillation takes place mainly in France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and India. Bitter fennel oil (from fruits of the cultivated plant) is a pale yellow or almost colorless liquid of a somewhat sharp and warm-camphoraceous odor, initially earthy, but later on sweet, anisic and spicy. Its flavor is distinctly bitter, slightly burning, but it tones out in a sweet aftertaste, still carrying, however, a warm-camphoraceous or earthy note. This is typical of its difference from the flavor of **Sweet Fennel Oil **(so-called "Roman" fennel oil, se following monograph). **Bitter Fennel Oil **has become particularly popular in Germany and other central European countries where the bitter fennel herb has been known and used for many centuries: in medicine, cooking, and last but not least, in the flavoring of liqueurs. The essential oil has largely replaced the herb for this purpose. The oil is used in minute amounts in a number of fruit flavors, but the bitter note and the camphoraceous-earthy taste prohibits its extensive use in fine flavoring. The suggested use level is 1.00 to 5.00 mg%, and the **Minimum**** ****Perceptible **is about 0.2 to 0.4 mg%. The oil is frequently used as a masking agent, as a perfume ingredient in technical preparations, room-sprays, insecticides, etc. It is perhaps the largest in quantity of the fennel oils. The annual world production fluctuates between 25 and 75 metric tons. However, fennel belongs to those aromatic seeds which have already seen their best years. Its popularity reached its peak hundreds of years ago, and fennel is slowly but steadily on the downgrade. **Bitter Fennel Fruit Oil **(2) is frequently adulterated with synthetic anethole, synthetic or isolated estragole, fenchone, phellandrene and other monoterpenes. It can be quite difficult to distinguish between a natural and an artificial oil, but if an organoleptic examination is in favor of the sample, there is little reason for not preferring the oil whatever the origin (see chapter on **Adulteration**, Part One of this book). Synthetic anethole may contain the toxic isomer cis-Anethole, see monograph on **Star**** ****Anise**** ****Oil**, and care should be taken that such material is not used in the composing of artificial fennel oils.