Peanut Pairing Baijiu: To Enhance Retronasal Aroma Intensity while Reducing Baijiu Aftertaste

Liquor-pairing food is a common dietary combination. Baijiu and peanuts are unquestionably a classic pairing in China. But no one has explained why. Its alteration in baijiu flavor was studied using multiple sensory evaluation, as well as nontargeted proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometry coupled with GC × GC-MS. Multiple statistical analyses were used to discover the changes in the retronasal aroma and its contribution to baijiu flavor. It showed that the consumption of peanuts enhances the burst intensity of ester aroma (0.814-1.00) and Jiao aroma (0.889-0.963) but decreases the aftertaste of baijiu (