Distinguishing between juniper-flavoured spirit drinks from different producers

Abstract

A simple method for classifying juniper-flavoured spirit drinks is proposed based on the ratio of fluorescence intensity values in synchronous fluorescence spectra. Receiver operating curves (ROC) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were used to compute the performance of the classification. Significant differences in the fluorescence intensity ratios (I 316 /I 287 and I 324 /I 287 ) observed in the spectra recorded using wavelength difference 10 nm were evaluated by ROC analysis to identify cutoff values that gave ideal AUCs equal to one, thus allowing for 100% correct classification of the samples according to producer criteria. LDA showed that drinks of different producers could be distinguished (100% correct classification) on the basis of their differences in the fluorescence intensity ratios (I 323 /I 287 , I 324 /I 287 , I 316 /I 287 and I 325 /I 287 ). These results show that complete synchronous spectra are not required to discriminate between producers. Instead of them, fluorescence intensity could be measured at selected wavelengths.