Herein, we evaluate the fuel and physicochemical characteristics of saturated fatty alcohols and conclude that the C8 fatty alcohol, 1-octanol, is a highly attractive biofuel with diesel-like properties. Previously, 1-octanol had been synthesised by (i) the reversal of beta-oxidation (Dellomonaco et al., 2011), (ii) rerouting branched-chain amino acid biosynthesis (Marcheschi et al., 2012) and (iii) extending the 1-butanol pathway (Machado et al., 2012). In this study, we engineer a novel metabolic route for the production of 1-octanol inEscherichia coli and furthermore show that it can be naturally excreted into the media.