Posted on 07/25/2011 10:38:33 AM PDT by Red Badger
Methods for distinguishing between authentic and counterfeit Scotch whisky brands have been devised by scientists at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.
Researchers from the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry have found new ways to compare the content of whisky samples to determine if they are the whisky on the label or an imitation brand.
A series of blind tests successfully put the real whisky brand and the fakes in the right categories. The system could enhance the technology industry uses to tackle the trade in illicit whisky, which costs huge sums in lost revenue and threatens brand reputation.
Professor David Littlejohn, who led the research, said: "The whisky industry has tools at its disposal for telling authentic and counterfeit whisky brands apart but many of them involve lab-based analysis, which isn't always the most convenient system if a sample needs to be identified quickly.
"There's a growing need for methods that can provide simpler and faster identification and we have developed a system which could be adapted for devices to use on site, without the need to return samples to a lab. It could be of great benefit to an industry which is hugely important to the economy."
The researchers analysed 17 samples of blended whisky, looking at the concentration of ethanol in the samples without diluting them and the residue of dried whisky. They did so with mid-infrared spectrometry, used with immersion probes that incorporate novel optical fibres developed by Scottish based company Fibre Photonics Ltd, who co-sponsored the research. The procedures developed can provide prompt, accurate analysis without the complexity and cost of some other systems.
The levels of ethanol and colourant led them to identify correctly the eight authentic and nine counterfeit samples.
The project research paper has been published in Analytica Chimica Acta.
Have you heard? What's the Word? It's Thunderbird!
They still make that stuff?................
You’d be surprised what they still make.
That’s not kosher................
I suppose Burma Shave and the Fuller brush are still around somewhere............
Burma-Shave
What’s the matter with Convenient Supermarket’s top shelf whiskey?
Ditto on the Dewars and Bomar for a good single malt.
whats the price? Forty twice!
Once you try ‘Laphroaigh’ you will say Glen Who?
I don’t know what you’re referring to, since I live in Florida and supermarkets don’t sell liquor here..........................
I live up here in Ohio, and you used to be able to buy hard liquor . . . kinda' generic and watered down . . . at some of our convenience stores. I doubt if they sell it anymore.
Bourbon List Ping!
Ours sell beer and wine only. Liquor is sold in a stand-alone store. It may be adjacent, but must be separate. When I was in Europe, 10 years back, I was surprised to see liquor sold in grocery stores...............
Careful there, you might get someone's Irish up, let alone Tennessee or Kentucky!
In my experience, the term “quality blended whisk[e]y” is an oxymoron. White Label is better than most, certainly, but the whole point of drinking whisky in the first place is to be drinking something that is unique, and not homogenized for mass consumption.
Now, that’s personal opinion and taste on my part.
The reason why I grew up not wanting to touch any product of Dewar’s, however good the quality might be, is that I was taught from an age well before I could drink that Joe P. Kennedy Sr. had been the sole agent for Dewar’s in the US and that all those among the Scots diaspora who were drinking any Dewar’s product, thinking they were getting a taste of the homeland, were in fact enriching the contemptible Kennedy clan of Catholic Irish.
I was working a job that required me to visit a spirits bottling plant. They had a 10,000 gallon container of vodka. The same vodka was then bottled under at least ten different labels (as well as bottle sizes/shapes and makes - glass or plastic), all with a different price point and destined for different markets around the area.
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