# Comparison of Volatile Profiles of Meads and Related Uniflorl Honeys: Traceability Markers
## 1 Introduction  
Mead (known also as honey wine) is a traditional alcoholic beverage prepared by fermentation of aqueous honey solution. It may be prepared using different honey varieties along with various additives and it is prepared in distinct conditions which have great impact on the final product characteristics [1]. Polish meads are registered and protected by the UE as Traditional Speciality Guaranteed. The traditional method of preparation involves gently boiling the word (saturated mead), dissolving the honey in water, boiling at 95-105 \({}^{\circ}\)C and removing the coagulated impurities gathering on the top [2]. However, not boiled (unsaturated) meads are also available on the market and claim to preserve more of the original honey aroma. Besides different additives and modes of preparation, the honey variety shows the greatest impact on the final quality and aroma characteristics of the mead. This is particularly visible in traditional \"show\" mead, which is a plain mead containing, besides nutrient additives, only water and honey. Meads prepared from uniflorl honeys may retain characteristic aroma properties and some of them, e.g., mead produced from linden honey, were particularly valued in the past [3]. However, the research literature seems to lack studies focusing on the volatile traceability markers in meads. During the preparationof the word and during fermentation, different processes affect the chemical composition of the product. Heat treatment makes the fermentation process easier for yeast, thus accelerating the ethanol production, and gently boiled word results in significantly higher antioxidant activity of the mead but also increases in HMF (5-hydroxymethylfurfural) level. Nevertheless, prolonged heating reduces the positive effects on antioxidant activity and total phenolic content of some honey types [1,4]. Therefore, according to [PERSON] and [PERSON], the HMF level and the phenolic compound profile are not good indicators of thermal processing of honey word in commercial meal samples [5]. Still not much is known about the volatile composition of meads prepared from different unifloral honecys, as well as on differences between profiles of the boiled and not boiled meads. Just recently, [PERSON] and [PERSON] reported a study on the effect of word boiling on the formation of volatiles and sensory properties of mead produced from multifocal honey, focusing on headspace volatiles [6]. The scope of this study was to: (i) investigate and, for the first time, compare volatile profiles of both headspace and liquid extracts of honey as well as boiled and not boiled meads from the most common unifloral varieties occurring in Poland (canola, buckwheat, linden, honeydew), (ii) investigate the changes in volatile profiles between honey and corresponding mead, (iii) evaluate the differences in volatile profiles between boiled and not boiled meads, for the first time include liquid extracts of volatiles, and select potential processing markers, (iv) determine the possible chemical marker compounds retained in the final product, which are useful to confirm the botanical origin of the honey used to prepare mead.