American Journal of Plant Sciences, 2014, 5, 3140-3150 Published Online October 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ajps http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ajps.2014.521330 How to cite this paper: Santiago, W.D., et al. (2014) Comparison and Quantification of the Development of Phenolic Com- pounds during the Aging of Cachaça in Oak (Quercus sp) and Amburana (Amburana cearensis) Barrels. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 5, 3140-3150. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ajps.2014.521330 Comparison and Quantification of the Development of Phenolic Compounds during the Aging of Cachaça in Oak (Quercus sp) and Amburana (Amburana cearensis) Barrels Wilder D. Santiago 1 , Maria das G. Cardoso 1* , Juliana de A. Santiago 1 , Marcos S. Gomes 1 , Leonardo M. A. Rodrigues 2 , Rafaela M. Brandão 1 , Rodolfo R. Cardoso 1 , Gabriel B. d’Avila 2 , Bruno L. da Silva 1 , Alex R. S. Caetano 1 1 Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Brazil 2 Department of Food Science, Federal University of Lavras, Lavras, Brazil Email: * mcardoso@dqi.ufla.br Received 22 August 2014; revised 22 September 2014; accepted 5 October 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Aging is a stage of the cachaça production process in which several chemical reactions occur be- tween compounds extracted from the wood and other compounds present on the beverage. In an attempt to establish a profile regarding the chemical characterization of aged cachaças, phenolic compounds have been studied because of the specific characteristics of each wood species and their known antioxidant properties. This work sought to assess and compare the development of 12 phenolic compounds in cachaças aged in oak (Quercus sp) and amburana (Amburana cearenses) barrels during a period of 12 months. There was a progressive increase in the concentration of phenolic compounds in the beverage for both of the types of wood. The principal compounds en- countered in the cachaça aged in oak barrels were gallic acid, syringaldehyde and syringic acid, while vanillic acid, syringaldehyde, sinapic acid and gallic acid were isolated from that aged in amburana barrels. Keywords Beverage, Aging, Phenolic Compounds, Liquid Chromatography * Corresponding author.