A DISTILLED liquor may be regarded as an ethanolwater solution containing small quantities of certain secondary constituents (2) which usually amount to less than 1 per cent of the whole.The secondary constituents, which impart to the beverage its characteristic flavor and bouquet, may be divided into three groups: (a) substances derived from the original grain or other starting material by the processes of fermentation, distillation, etc.; (b) reaction products formed during aging, particularly as a result of esterification and oxidation; (c) flavor-producing substances added or extracted from wood.The first group-i. e., the flavor-producing materials which are inherent in the freshly distilled liquor-consist chiefly of the higher alcohols and their esters. The higher alcohols are grouped together under the collective designation fusel oil, which in analytical practice includes not only the free alcohols but also those portions which are esterified, the esters being decomposed by saponification before the higher alcohols are determined.Fusel oil content furnishes one of the principal criteria for judging the type, quality, and purity of a distilled liquor, and for this reason its determination is of importance in the chemical examination of such a beverage. The various methods of fusel oil determination depend either upon an approximate separation of the higher alcohols from the ethanolwater solution by means of extraction, or on colorimetric reactions exhibited by the higher alcohols but not by ethyl alcohol. The available methods are defective in various ways,
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