History Main / BitterAlmonds

* ''[[https://youtu.be/WYagO-nup6c Does cyanide actually smell like almonds?]]" by [=YouTuber=] [=NileRed=]. He establishes that cyanide gas does smell like bitter almonds, and that they both smell more like swimming pool water than like ordinary sweet almonds.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'':

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "The Town That Rose From the Dead", the second victim of the week is murdered by being forced to drink from a cyanide laced flask. Barnaby, Winter and Kam all notice the smell of bitter almonds.

[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/{{Batman}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/almond_tarts_indeed_8.png]]]]

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* The ''Series/{{Hustle}}'' episode "Whittaker Our Way Out" contains a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion. Mickey smells almonds (presumably sweet) on fellow conman JW3 who is supposed to be FakingTheDead which causes him to abandon the proceeds of the con and clear the team out of the building, believing the man actually dead and the police on their way. It's only after Mickey notices another, [[ConvictionByContradiction much less relevant discrepancy]] that he realizes that JW3 is alive and absconding with the money.

* Creator/AgathaChristie (maybe the tropemaker) herself uses this. And quite justified, seeing as she worked in pharmacies during World Wars I and II.

::: He then goes on to point out the difference between the smell of bitter and sweet almonds, as mentioned above.

* Subverted in a ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' [[http://cdn-i.dmdentertainment.com/cracked/wong/chameleon1.jpg comic]] in which Aunt May bakes some cookies for the Chameleon, who disguised himself as Peter and planned to kill her. He mentions how he loves the slight almond taste, and Aunt May tells him that it came from the poison she laced them with since she figured out that he was an impostor. After Spidey comes to the rescue a tad too late and finds the Chameleon unconscious, Aunt May reveals that she only mixed sleeping pills in them and that [[BewareTheNiceOnes she added almond extract just to screw with him]]. Strangely, the poison she claimed was in the cookies was arsenic, not cyanide. [[FanWank Maybe she didn't know for sure he was an impostor and assumed if it was really her scientist nerd nephew he'd correct her on this]].

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[[quoteright:350:[[ComicStrip/DickTracy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bitter_almonds_crop.png]]]]

* ''Series/DeathInParadise'': In "One for the Road", Humphrey smells bitter almonds on the murdered governor and announces she has been poisoned with cyanide.

* It's not unknown for a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for hazardous chemicals to describe what a substance smells like AND to note that it's fatal if the concentration is strong enough that you can smell it.

** In ''[[Film/MurderAhoy Murder Ahoy!]]''), she excludes it because the snuff she suspects someone was poisoned with lacks the smell.

* Literature/MissMarple as portrayed by Margaret Rutherford detects the presence of cyanide in ''Film/MurderMostFoul'' because of the smell. In the fourth movie (''Murder Ahoy!''), she excludes it because the snuff she suspects someone was poisoned with lacks it.

** In manga file #757, Conan points out that there's an element of FingertipDrugAnalysis to this: he smells an almond scent coming from a corpse's lips, but [[http://mangafox.me/manga/detective_conan/v72/c757/3.html cautions one of the others on the scene against sniffing]] because he's an "amateur".

* ''In Film/SherlockHolmesAndTheHouseOfDeath'', Holmes tells Captain Simpson that someone is trying to poison and hands him his brandy glass and tells him to smell it. Simpson sniffs the glass and detects the odour of bitter almonds. However, Holmes later reveals to Watson that he spiked Simpson's brandy with almonds to see his reaction to someone trying to poison him.

* Used as the punchline of [[http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp03172010.shtml this]] ''Webcomic/SomethingPositive'' strip.

* Subverted in a ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' [[http://cdn-i.dmdentertainment.com/cracked/wong/chameleon1.jpg comic]] in which Aunt May bakes some cookies for the Chameleon, who disguised himself as Peter and planned to kill her. He mentions how he loves the slight almond taste, and Aunt May tells him that it came from the poison she laced them with since she figured out that he was an impostor. After Spidey comes to the rescue a tad too late and finds the Chameleon unconscious, Aunt May reveals that she only mixed sleeping pills in them and that [[BewareTheNiceOnes she added almond extract just to screw with him]]. Strangely, the poison she claimed was in the cookies was arsenic, not cyanide. [[FanWank Maybe she didn't know for sure he was an impostor and assumed if it was really her scientist nerd nephew he'd correct her on this]].

* Surprisingly {{Averted}} in ''ComicBook/{{Diabolik}}'': the title character's favourite poison is cyanide, but almond taste was ''never'' mentioned. {{Justified}} as he normally administers it as gas or by injection, with the two times it was ingested being two showing-off in which it wouldn't have been noticed (in a capsule he hid in the fake tooth of his victim and ''on the pages of a speech given by a journalist with the habit of licking his finger before turning page'').

* In the film ''Film/TheLittleGirlWhoLivesDownTheLane'' Rynn describes a substance that her dying father had given her to put in her mother's tea if she ever came around trying to meddle to "calm her down". It turns out to be cyanide, and it kills her, but while drinking the tea she commented that it tasted of almonds. (Rynn initially thinks it's because of the almond biscuits) This is the clue in the final scene between Rynn and her lecherous pedophile neighbor as to which one truly received the poisoned cup of tea. (This time, Rynn served the almond biscuits on purpose.)

* A somewhat more realistic example in the Soviet TheFilmOfTheBook ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone''. After a man gulps a shot of whiskey and immediately drops dead, the doctor [[FingertipDrugAnalysis smears some of the leftover drinks on his palms, rubs them a bit and then sniffs]], detecting a scent of cyanide.

* Used to the advantage of a character in Stephen R. Lawhead's ''Literature/{{Empyrion}}'' duology, who carries canisters that unleash the scent of bitter almonds so that she can scare off guards with her "cyanide gas".
* In the Creator/StephenKing poem ''Paranoid: A Chant'', the main character speaks of ". . . the yellow taste of mustard / to mask the bitter odor of almonds." Considering the title, you might take that with a grain of (arsenic-laced) salt.

* An attempted aversion occurs in Patricia Cornwell's ''Literature/{{Scarpetta}}'' series. In "Cause of Death," Dr. Scarpetta is the only one to smell bitter almonds in a dead diver's breathing equipment. In monologue, Scarpetta claims that the ability to smell cyanide is a recessive trait, shared by only 20% or so of the population. The problem is, she's got it backwards - it's 20% of the population that ''can't'' smell cyanide.
* In one of Creator/RoaldDahl's short stories, "Literature/TheLandlady", the protagonist is drinking tea with his weird old landlady. He declines another cup because it "tasted faintly of bitter almonds and he did not care for it".

* Creator/RaymondChandler:
** ''Nevada Gas''.
** ''Literature/TheBigSleep'', wherein a side character is poisoned with cyanide in whisky and dies in the span of a single page. Notably, Marlowe calls the cyanide not because of the smell -- which is noted -- but because the victim vomited.
* "Bitter Almonds" is the title of a ''Literature/MontagueEgg'' mystery by Creator/DorothyLSayers. The story concerns an elderly man who was believed to have been poisoned by his nephew after threatening to disinherit him. Mr. Egg, a traveling salesman for a fine-wines-and-spirits brokerage, realizes the true story thanks to his encyclopedic knowledge of liquors. The "victim", after the argument with his nephew, poured himself a glass of almond liqueur from a bottle that had stood unopened in his cabinet for twenty years. The problem with that particular brand of liqueur is that its flavoring contained bitter almond oil; the stuff had risen to the top of the bottle and concentrated, and so the glass the old man poured himself contained a lethal dose of cyanide. And if this sounds outlandish to you, [[RippedFromTheHeadlines there is at least one true story]] of a person accidentally killing themselves in this way which Sayers had heard about.
* The non-fiction book ''Literature/MurderInk'' (the paperback version) by Dilys Winn included its own murder mystery with various clues among the pages. The deceased is dead of cyanide poisoning via his afternoon tea. The inside cover has a scratch & sniff tea bag -- smelling distinctly of sweet almonds.
* In a variant, vampire Jack Fleming of is injected with cyanide in ''[[Literature/TheVampireFiles A Chill In The Blood]]'', and Doc identifies the poison by smelling the needle. He doesn't specify what it smelled like, but Jack's undead metabolism lets him sweat blood until it's all out of his system, and the ''blood-sweat'' is described as smelling like almonds mixed with rust and raw meat (ick).

* In ''Literature/TheAsylumForWaywardVictorianGirls'', Madame Mournigton realizes that Dr. Stockill killed her daughter, Violet, after recognizing the scent of almond (the only thing she is cabable of smelling) on recently-killed Christelle's breath.
* Averted in ''Requiem for a Mezzo'' by Carola Dunn. When the victim drops dead on stage three out of four people can smell bitter almonds, so they assume cyanide poisoning. (The fourth is a doctor, who states that he cannot smell cyanide.) However the liqueur the victim was drinking smelled of almonds anyway and it does turn out to be something else that killed her.
* Late in ''[[Literature/PhiloVance The Bishop Murder Case]]'', Vance and Sergeant Heath break into an attic. Among other evidence, they find a room with chemistry equipment set up, and a scent of bitter almonds in the air. Yep, you guessed it, the murderer was making his own cyanide.
* Sophronia muses early in ''[[Literature/TheFinishingSchoolSeries Curtsies & Conspiracies]]'' that while she's quite fond of almond cake, she swore off eating it after her first cyanide lesson because it would be impossible to tell the scent of almond cake from the scent of cyanide-laced cake.

* In ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde'', Edward Hyde kills himself with cyanide, which Gabriel Utterson identifies by the smell of bitter almonds.

* In an episode of ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE'', as part of a counterintelligence scam, Ilya fakes his suicide by drinking "cyanide", leaving behind the scent of bitter almonds on his "corpse".

* Referenced in Music/{{Genesis}}'s "Broadway Melody of 1974", from ''Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway'':
-->The cheerleader waves her cyanide wand\\
There's a smell of peach blossom and bitter almond

It's wrong but i want you tonight.

* Parodied in an episode of ''Radio/TheBurkissWay'' where a detective smells cyanide and concludes that the victim must have been poisoned with bitter almonds.

* In the ''VideoGame/DetectiveConan'' Wii game, one of the victims ends up with cyanide poisoning in the Labyrinth of Ice...and Conan, as always, is conveniently there.

* An alien version occurs in ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlackTheSeries''. Jay, disguised as an alien bodyguard, tests a meal which he describes as tasting of cashews. Kay is quick to inform him that such a taste is indicative of alien poison. Jay is quick to freak out... until Kay adds that it doesn't affect humans.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Cotton Hill claims his ex-wife tried to kill him with a poisoned baked chicken, which according to her was simply Chicken Almondine (chicken with almonds). Cotton retorts that it was cyanide.

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicStrip/DickTracy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bitter_almonds_crop.png]]

** In ''Discworld/NightWatch'', Lord Winder's food taster with AcquiredPoisonImmunity initially thinks that a slice of cake is poisoned because of the almonds in it.

Not related to {{sour grapes|Tropes}}.

* In Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde, Edward Hyde kills himself with cyanide, which Gabriel Utterson identifies by the smell of bitter almonds.

* In "Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde", Edward Hyde kills himself with cyanide, which Gabriel Utterson identifies by the smell of bitter almonds.

* In "Literature//TheStrangeCaseOfDr.JekyllAndMr.Hyde", Edward Hyde kills himself with cyanide, which Gabriel Utterson identifies by the smell of bitter almonds.

* In "[[Literature//TheStrangeCaseOfDr.JekyllAndMr.Hyde]]", Edward Hyde kills himself with cyanide, which Gabriel Utterson identifies by the smell of bitter almonds.