## 4 Discussion
The highest content of polyphenols (164.5 mg gallic acid/100 mL) was determined in the liqueur after 90 days of maceration and was higher by 66 and 16% than the values recorded in the liqueurs macerated for 0 and 180 days, respectively [19]. However, the authors of the cited work emphasized that different phenolic profiles might have triggered various responses to the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent, which could have affected the values reported in their study. This could also be the reason for the differences in phenolic compounds observed in berry liqueurs, despite them having same antioxidant properties (Table 1). The available literature on the subject has shown a significant effect of sucrose addition to liqueurs on their content of phenolic compounds. Liqueurs made of hawthorn fruits saturated with sucrose contained about 17% more polyphenolic compounds compared to those produced from unsweetened fruits [14]. A similar observation was made by [PERSON] et al. (2014) [7], who investigated the antioxidative activity of liqueurs from red fruits. They found that the liqueurs made with sugar contained more compounds that reacted with the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent than those without added sugar. Such differences in antioxidative activity were also reported by [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] (2009) [25] in wine. They believed that this might have been due to reactions between oxidized polyphenols and to the formation of new antioxidants, which significantly hampered the prediction of the antioxidative capacity of processed fruits during storage. Antioxidative activity against DPPH radicals and the ferric ion reducing capacity (FRAP) were statistically significantly higher in the case of liqueurs produced from hawthorn fruits saturated with sucrose than from the unsaturated ones. Saturation with a sucrose solution had no statistically significant effect on antioxidative activity against ABTS radicals [14]. In contrast, the present study results showed no effect of the sweetener type on the antioxidative activity of the produced liqueurs determined in the DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP assays. The differences in antioxidative activity between the liqueurs were statistically insignificant regardless of the assay. Its highest values were obtained in the ABTS assay (from 1081.88 to 1238.13 \(\upmu\)mol Tx/100 mL), while the lowest ones were obtained in the DPPH assay (from 348.8 to 367.88 \(\upmu\)mol Tx/100 mL). In turn, the FRAP values ranged from 594.20 to 653.20 \(\upmu\)mol FeSO\({}_{4}\)/100 mL. It can, therefore, be concluded that each of the liqueurs contained antioxidative compounds that act through free radicals as well as those that reduce the capacity of metals. According to [PERSON] et al. (2023) [18], the differences between the DPPH and ABTS methods, which have the same mechanism of action, can be attributed to their specific properties, i.e., the stereochemistry of radicals, the reaction temperature, or the solvent used. The FRAP method covers the most antioxidant components in the sample, while the DPPH method covers only a portion of the most reactive, and the ABTS method covers intermediate values [26]. The antioxidative capacity of the _A. humile_ liqueur determined in the DPPH and FRAP assays was significantly lower than that of the analyzed berry liqueurs. It ranged from 0.66 to 2.36 and from 0.06 to 0.14 \(\upmu\)mol Tx/g of sample, respectively. The values obtained depended on the liqueur preparation procedure used. The ABTS analysis was impossible due to too low values of antioxidative activity [18]. On the other hand, the antioxidative activity of an ethanolic extract from fresh _Myrtus communis_ L. berries reached 0.915 mg/mL at the time of preparation, then increased, reaching a maximum after 3 months of storage, and subsequently decreased and stabilized at 0.930 mg/mL after 8 months of storage. Changes in this parameter were due to the hydrolysis of flavonoid glycosides and subsequent degradation of anthocyanins [27]. The maturation time also strongly affected the antioxidative properties of the grape stem liqueur.