Sensory descriptor
Nectar
A light, sweet, floral-sugary impression from phenylethyl acetate and residual sugar together.
- Aroma family
- Honeyed
- Does it indicate a fault?
- No — a normal part of cider and perry aroma
What causes it
Nectar names the lighter end of the honeyed family, and its principal driver is 2-phenylethyl acetate — the acetate ester of the rose-scented higher alcohol — which carries a sweeter, more floral and less oxidised character than the phenylacetaldehyde behind honey. It is a fermentation product rather than an ageing one, so it appears in young cider and declines with time as the ester hydrolyses. Residual sugar reinforces it, which is why it is met more often in keeved and back-sweetened ciders than in fully dry ones.
The compounds responsible
Where the molecule is established. Some descriptors in this lexicon name a compound the compound register does not yet hold a record for; those are named in the cause above instead.
2-Phenylethanol
The yeast-made alcohol responsible for the rose and honey note in cider, produced from phenylalanine and one of the few floral aromas that is not carried in from the fruit.
Isoamyl acetate
The banana and pear-drop ester, made by yeast from isoamyl alcohol, and one of the clearest chemical signatures of a warm fermentation.
Fructose
The dominant sugar of apple juice and the sweetest of the common sugars, which is why apple juice tastes sweeter than its total sugar figure implies and why a stuck ferment leaves sweetness behind.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Keeving
Forming a floating pectin gel that lifts nutrients and solids out of the juice, so that the ferment starves before it finishes and leaves natural sweetness behind.
Arrested fermentation
Deliberately halting a ferment while sugar remains, to obtain natural sweetness from the fruit rather than from an addition — and accepting the instability that follows.
Back-sweetening
Adding sugar, juice or concentrate to a cider that has fermented dry — a straightforward adjustment that leaves the drink microbiologically unstable until something is done about it.
Fermentation temperature control
Managing the temperature at which a ferment runs, which sets not only how fast it goes but which aromatics survive it and what the finished cider tastes of.
Where it is usually met
Fruit and styles this character is recorded in. A record here is where the descriptor is commonly found, not a claim that every example shows it.
About Nectar
Nectar is a young-cider descriptor where honey is an aged-cider one, and the two are frequently conflated. Separating them is worthwhile because they point at opposite ends of a cider’s life.
It is characteristic of successful keeving, where a cool nutrient-limited fermentation and arrested sugar coincide, and its presence alongside apple blossom is a reasonable signature of that method.
Others in the honeyed family
Honey, beeswax, nectar.
Honey
A sweet, waxy floral note from phenylacetaldehyde, formed by mild oxidation of 2-phenylethanol as cider ages.
Beeswax
A dry, waxy, faintly sweet note from long-chain fatty acids and their esters, associated with lees contact.
Candied peel
Sweet, concentrated citrus-and-sugar character from terpene release during long maturation of a sweet cider.
Honeycomb
Honey with a caramelised, slightly burnt-sugar edge, met where oxidative honey notes coincide with Maillard character.
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- What temperature should cider ferment at — Most cider is fermented cool, commonly between about 12 and 18 °C. Cooler ferments keep more fruit aroma and run slower; above the low twenties the cider tends towards hot, solvent-like higher alcohols.
- How do i make my cider sweeter
- How do you stop cider from fermenting — By removing the yeast, by chilling, by filtering it out, by pasteurising, or by a combination — and in practice a home maker cannot reliably stop a ferment mid-way with chemicals alone. Sorbate prevents yeast multiplying but will not stop an active ferment.
- What is keeving — Keeving is a technique for starving a ferment of nitrogen so that it stops before all the sugar is gone, leaving a naturally sweet cider. Pectin is made to gel and float as a brown cap, carrying nutrients and yeast out of the juice with it.
- What is keeved cider — A cider made naturally sweet by starving the yeast rather than by adding sugar. Keeving strips nutrients out of the juice before fermentation, so the ferment slows and stops with fruit sugar still in it, and nothing has been put back.
- Which sugar is most of the sugar in apple juice — Fructose, by a long way. Apple juice carries roughly twice as much fructose as glucose, with a smaller amount of sucrose, and fructose is the sweetest of the three on the tongue.
Where to go next
- The sensory model — The thirteen structural dimensions and the twenty aroma families, in full.
- Compounds — The chemistry behind the words.
- Troubleshooting — When a perception turns out to be a problem, this is where it is diagnosed.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
IFPC · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The French technical institute for cider production. The authority for the French cultivar classification families, for keeving as an industrial process, and for the pectin and nitrogen chemistry that keeving depends on.
The Science of Cidermaking and associated technical writing
Andrew Lea · reference work · passage verified 2026-08-24
Written by a food chemist who worked at Long Ashton on apple phenolics. Unusual among specialist cider writing in that it is primary-research-adjacent: the author is describing work he did, and cites the literature. This is why it is registered at tier 1 for chemistry while a general cider book is not.
The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers
Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against the Open Library union catalogue: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781603584739, one edition recorded. That establishes the citation points at a real book in a stated edition, which is what a citation needs and is all it establishes. No copy was opened and nothing is quoted from it. The book itself is in print and not digitised in any open collection; where CiderHQ needs a figure from this territory it uses an accessible research source instead and says so.