Posted on 03/26/2020 10:34:38 PM PDT by LibWhacker
A drop of American whiskey evaporated to form a distinctive web-like pattern of solutes.
By Barry Keily
The mark of a particular bourbon, it turns out, is not its taste, nor its price-point, nor even the clever design on its label.
No. Scientists have now demonstrated that what truly distinguishes a drop of Bulleit from a drop of Knob Creek, or a snifter of Jimmy B from a slurp of Wild T is the mark it leaves on the coaster.
The discovery, outlined in detail in the journal ACS Nano, is actually more significant, and more complex, than it first sounds. It has a potential real-world use as a method of detecting adulterated products. Mostly, however, it is just very cool.
Bourbon – and only bourbon – makes its mark.
Researchers led by mechanical engineer Adam Carrithers from the University of Louisville in Kentucky, US, turned their attention to the previously neglected chemistry of whiskey stains, inspired by long-established research concerning another popular beverage: coffee.
Everyone who drinks coffee is well aware that if a small amount is dropped on a non-porous or semi-porous surface and left to look after itself it will dry and form a distinctive pattern.
This is known as a “coffee ring” and arises because the liquid at the edge of the spill evaporates more rapidly than the stuff in the middle. This induces a capillary flow from the centre to the outside, which gets faster as the total amount of coffee declines. The result is a distinctive ring, darker at its outer borders.
The chemistry and physics of the process was first described in 1997, and coffee ring science has gone on to be pretty much its own discipline, prompting dozens of papers every year.
Spilt bourbon doesn’t behave in the same way. Carrithers and colleagues discovered, however, that it does something just as interesting. It forms a web.
The researchers first noticed this when observing diluted bourbon drips left to dry on glass surfaces. With remarkable attention to detail – perhaps a mindset that can only be achieved while contemplating an empty whiskey tumbler – they noticed that the web formations that developed as the liquid evaporated appeared to differ depending on the brand.
Intrigued, they decided to look more closely and examine the process using uniform samples under laboratory conditions. With the aid of time-lapse microscopy, they got to work on a range of bourbons.
In any droplet, they discovered, non-volatile organic compounds called aromatics, phenols and esters clustered together on the surface and formed a layer just one molecule thick. As evaporation proceeded and the droplets grew smaller, the layer collapsed, creating the stands of a web.
These patterns, they realised, were brand specific. To test this, they arranged for a set of stains to be prepared, in circumstances where they were blind to the source bourbon. They then set about identifying each drink using only the web layout – and guessed correctly in 90% of cases.
This, they suggest, once properly codified, could provide a novel way to identify counterfeit booze.
But it would only work, it seems, in bourbon. In the ACS Nano paper, Carrithers and his team report that the same sort of distinct webbing does not develop in scotch, nor in Canadian whiskies.
And it is that sort of detail – that dedication to research – that is the mark of true scientists.
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Very interesting article.
I think more research is warranted.
Can’t Pelosi give me a $ million or so to acquire samples to test?
I’m just here to complain about the words Bourbon and Shot being used together, as I drink some Four Roses Small Batch Select, the new 104 proof stuff. I’m guessing the headline writer is still in college...
The words have been used together often for over a century.
A little bourbon, someone else’s spouse, and somebody winds up getting shot.
Very cool. Bookmarked. BTTT. Jim Beam? Just no.
My first thought on this is that this distinction must be due to the fact that Bourbon must be aged in virgin American charred oak barrels.
This something unique to Bourbon. The oils in wood of the oak will be altered chemically by the charring.
If the Bourbon barrels are reused to make another whiskey those oils will be largely gone.
who drinks for taste?
Well,….It’s at least a secondary concern.
You can’t get drunk if you can’t stand to swallow the stuff.
It’s the bouquet that counts...
At least for that French stuff.
BLASPHEMY!!!
Well, look who’s here. And you’re a Bourbon fan as well. By the way, when you go to read Cooper’s Book, “Involuntary Movement Disorders” remember, he was a bit of a narcissist. His “history” of Thallamotomy is pretty egocentric. It’s pretty much true but he makes himself the center of it and that wasn’t quite true. If you are ever interested in the details I would be glad to help. Ask your Neurosurgeon friend, he has probably heard of Cooper. At least if he is a real intellectual and a Neurosurgeon he has.
In my day every Neurosurgeon knew who he was and more of than a few hated him quite a bit. They felt he had done something similar to that stupid email about Chloroquine that was being spammed everywhere here 2 days ago. That shit would have landed you in prison in our day.
It’s amazing to me to think that YOU would think I would make up knowledge of a controversy in Neurosurgery that is 50 years old so I could lie to you on FReeRepublic. It truly astonishes me.
Does your pinky stick out when you drink it?
If you do the math, Fox came after my time. I was in the Army and off to all new adventures.
I’m not a molecular biologist. Have no idea what ORF is. My daughter, who got her PhD in Neuroscience at Tulane/post doc Emory probably does. We love each other and talk frequently but for some reason she refuses to talk about Neuroscience with me. She doesn’t want to have to bring me up to speed, I think.
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