Maturation of Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) flower-based liqueur: comprehensive targeted, semi- and untargeted metabolomic fingerprinting

Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) is a common weed and medicinal plant that can be used for culinary purposes, including alcoholic liqueurs. The final composition of these products highly depends on the raw material, extraction technology, and degradation or decomposition of extracted metabolites. In our study, a comprehensive metabolomic analysis of dandelion leaf-root drug, flowers, and alcoholic liqueur made from flowers was carried out using liquid chromatography – electrospray ionization – ion mobility separation – high-resolution mass spectrometry. As a whole, 84 compounds, primarily phenolic acid and flavonoid derivatives, were identified in the drug, flower, and liqueur samples, out of which 74, 60, and 59 compounds could be quantified, respectively. A list of 24 compounds (formerly unreported from any dandelion sample) could be set up with important hits such as taraxinositol A and taraxinositol B, whose MS/MS characterization are provided here. 48 compounds could be characterized with multivariate statistical analyses to obtain a concentration profile during the 8 weeks maceration process of the liqueur, showing significant decomposition or build-up curves and shedding light on liqueur (or maceration process) specific metabolites (e.g., sulfated derivatives of caffeic acid and esculetin) that could not be detected in the raw material. Finally, a suggestion on the optimum length of the maceration process, namely one month could be made on the basis of metabolite decomposition/build-up, supporting the improvement of the production technology. • Metabolomic fingerprinting was conducted on dandelion and its flower-based liqueur. • 84 compounds were identified, 24 of which were found in dandelions for the first time. • Significant differences were observed in composition between plant parts and liqueur. • The appearance of maceration-specific metabolites was detected during monitoring. • The concentration of most compounds reached its local maximum after one month.