The syntheses of a series of conformationally restricted 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP) analogs 1–3 are described. Evaluations of catalyst effectiveness demonstrated that 1 was the best catalyst for the acetylation reaction of a tertiary alcohol, while 2 and 3 were roughly comparable to DMAP. The order of effectiveness of these catalysts roughly parallels their acetylation enthalpies estimated from ab initio calculations.
