Recent advances in whiskey analysis for authentication, discrimination, and quality control

Abstract

In order to safeguard authentic whiskey products from fraudulent or counterfeit practices, high throughput solutions that provide robust, rapid, and reliable solutions are required. The implementation of some analytical strategies is quite challenging or costly in routine analysis. Qualitative screening of whiskey products has been explored, but due to the nonspecificity of the chemical compounds, a more quantitative confirmatory technique is required to validate the result of the whiskey analysis. Hence, combining analytical and chemometric methods has been fundamental in whiskey sample differentiation and classification. A comprehensive update on the most relevant and current analytical techniques, including spectroscopic, chromatographic, and novel technologies employed within the last 5 years in whiskey analysis for authentication, discrimination, and quality control, are presented. Furthermore, the technical challenges in employing these analytical techniques, future trends, and perspectives are emphasized.

Challenges in the Use of AI-Driven Non-Destructive Spectroscopic Tools for Rapid Food Analysis

“…Except for the issues related to the production of realistic solutions for food analysis, current classification and regression techniques meet challenges when they are used for the detection of adulterants at low concentration levels and the characterisation of complex food blends, where many compounds must be identified and quantified [ 118 ]. This can be explained by the difficulty associated with these analytical problems due to the subtle spectral differences between authentic and adulterated mixtures, as well as the overlapping peaks of compounds in mixtures.…”