“…[16,21] To establish the absolute configurations of the diastereoisomers 6a and 6b it was necessary to prepare compounds 11 and 12, with known absolute configurations, by alkylating the enantiomerically pure tetramethoxyresorcin[4]arenes (-)-(M,R)-8 and (+)-(P,S)-8, derived from 3-methoxyphenol and hexanal, which we had prepared and fully characterized previously, and to compare these compounds with those prepared by the methylation of 6a and 6b. [22] We chose to optimize the alkylation of the racemic tetramethoxyresorcin[4]-arene (Ϯ)-8 using the mesylate 9 and tosylate 10 (the enantiomer of which has been reported previously) [23] prepared in 87 and 75 % yields, respectively, from (-)-(2R)-2-methoxy-2-phenylethanol (2), as shown in Scheme 3. A series of experiments showed that alkylation of the racemic tetramethoxyresorcin[4]arene (Ϯ)-8 using tosylate 10 gave slightly higher yields of the diastereoisomers 11 and 12 than when mesylate 9 was used.…”