Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
Previously, I covered ethyl thiolactate, which is one of those oddly sweet smelling thiols (like grapefruit mercaptan). Ethyl lactate also smells nice.
Ethyl lactate is the ester of ethanol and lactic acid - Wikipedia claims it's biocompatible, because, after all, you have ethanol and lactate in you. The same is true of ethanol and acetic acid, though, and ethyl acetate is supposed to be moderately toxic. Maybe it's a hydrophobicity thing. Also, lactic acid is chiral, and you've only got one of the two running around.
Anyone have any ideas on those two?
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