(6 Aug 2019) LEAD IN: Scientists have invented a 'tongue' which they say can distinguish between real and counterfeit whisky.
The tongue has microscopic metal taste buds which researchers claim can detect genuine whisky with more than 99 percent accuracy.
STORY-LINE:
Laphroaig, Glenfiddich and Glen Marnoch are all well known whisky brands.
And now scientists at the University of Glasgow are using them to test out a 'tongue' which can distinguish between real and fake whisky.
In a paper published today ( 6 August) in the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal, Nanoscale, the Scottish engineers explain how the tiny tipple taster works.
They say dripping samples onto the tongue, which is made of gold and aluminium, helps identify the different properties of whisky, including counterfeit alcohol.
"The artificial tongue that we've made is a series of nanoscale taste buds which are about 500 times smaller than the human taste bud and the idea with this device is that those taste buds, because of their photonic properties, have a particular colour associated with them when we pour a chemical mixture on them, whisky in this case, we see a colour shift in the response of these little guys, and by tracking those colour shifts for different whiskies we can classify those different whiskies," explains Dr Alasdair Clark from the University of Glasgow's School of Engineering.
Statistical analysis of the very subtle differences in how the gold and aluminium metals absorb light allowed scientists to identify different types of whiskies.
Clark says the tongue is able to taste the differences between the drinks with more than 99 percent accuracy. It can even pick up subtler distinctions between the same whisky aged in different barrels and even the same whisky aged for 12, 15 and 18 years.
The researchers used three control substances – deionised water, deionised water mixed with vodka, straight vodka and seven different whiskies for the test.
According to Clark, the technology has a great deal of commercial potential and could even be used to test for things such as poisons in food:
"We've demonstrated this tongue as a whisky taster but by no means is it limited to whisky," he says.
"It could be any chemical mixture, so whether that be contaminants in the water supply somewhere, whether it be a poison, explosive mixtures. Basically anything in a liquid form with a complex chemical mixture that you might want to be able to identify, then we could use it to do that."
Although the researchers are not the first to make an artificial tongue, they are the first to use different types of nanoscale metal 'taste buds', which provide more information about the 'taste' of each sample and allow a faster and more accurate response, according to Clark.
"This tongue would be able to tell you in a very definitive sense whether it was cheap whisky manufactured elsewhere that was posing as an expensive whisky or it was the article itself," he adds.
Jo Graham, who runs the Glasgow based whisky training school The Whisky Ambassador, says science has a valuable role in rooting out fake whiskies, but that the brain also makes sensitive associations with the taste signals it receives:
"I truly believe in how science works, but I also believe in how the human brain identifies things and actually the taste of a whisky might take you back to a time and place where you were sitting, enjoying that whisky. And it's so emotive that it's combining science with emotion to get the experience," she says.
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