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Now you have me looking up basil on wikipedia to see which aroma chems make up the real thing. I imagine that's one place where you could start. I've never made a basil accord but it seems plausible that if you have at least some of the major contributing single aroma chem notes that make up the real thing that you could cobble together a pretty good imitation albeit stylized, no? Wikipedia has a lot of info on what makes basil smell the way it does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil
Chemical components
The various basils have such different scents because the herb has a number of different essential oils that come together in different proportions for various breeds. The strong clove scent of sweet basil is derived from eugenol, the same chemical as actual cloves.[11] The citrus scent of lemon basil and lime basil reflects their higher portion of citral, which causes this effect in several plants including lemon mint, and of limonene, which gives actual lemon peel its scent. African blue basil has a strong camphor smell because it contains camphor and camphene in higher proportions. Licorice basil contains anethole, the same chemical that makes anise smell like licorice, and in fact is sometimes called "anise basil."
Other chemicals that help to produce the distinctive scents of many basils, depending on their proportion in each specific breed, include:
citronellol (scented geraniums, roses, and citronella)[12]
linalool[13] (a flowery scent also in coriander)
myrcene (bay leaf, myrcia)[14]
pinene (which is, as the name implies, the chemical that gives pine oil its scent)
ocimene[14]
terpineol
linalyl acetate
fenchyl acetate
trans-ocimene
1,8-cineole
camphor octanane
methyl eugenol
methyl chavicol[12]
eugenol[12]
beta-caryophyllene
Based on chemical content, basils can be divided into four groups:
French; Ocimum basilicum, contains lower amounts of phenols
exotic; contains methyl chavicol (40-80%)
methyl cinnamate - ether 90%
eugenol
Basil and oregano contain large amounts of (E)-beta-caryophyllene (BCP), which might have a use in treating inflammatory bowel diseases and arthritis. BCP is the only product identified in nature that activates CB2 selectively; it interacts with one of two cannabinoid receptors (CB2), blocking chemical signals that lead to inflammation, without triggering cannabis's mood-altering effects.[15]
Aroma profiles[edit]
1,8-cineole[16][17]
Bergamotene[18]
Eugenol[16][18]
Linalool[16][18]
Methyl chavicol[17][18]
Methyl cinnamate[18][19]
Methyl eugenol[16][20]
Phenylpropanoids[16]
trans-β-Ocimene[16]
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For the aroma chems you don't have in that odor profile you could look on the good scents database and try to find matches or close matches within your collection that might make good substitutes to play around with. Same thing might work for a cinnamon accord.
I've made a pretty realistic cinnamon note many times by accident by combining the three or four chems I have with cinnamate, cinnamic or cinnamyl in their names. Cinnamon is a really strong note, I find that it can completely take over a mix with no effort.
Originally Posted by pkiler
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