A New Scientific Tongue Could Help Cut Down Counterfeit Whisky

The secondary market of whisky, especially that which happens at legitimate auction sites, is sometimes plagued with bottles containing counterfeit whisky. It is something which is a headache for buyers, sellers and brands alike, and the options to determine what’s real and what’s not are somewhat few and complicated. A new and so-called “artificial tongue” that’s been developed in Scotland could help to address this issue.

The artificial tongue, developed by engineers and chemists from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, exploits the optical properties of gold and aluminum to test the tipples. More specifically, according to university officials,

Sub-microscopic slices of the two metals, arranged in a checkerboard pattern, act as the ‘tastebuds’ in the team’s artificial tongue. The researchers poured samples of whisky over the tastebuds – which are about 500 times smaller than their human equivalents – and measured how they absorb light while submerged.

Statistical analysis of the very subtle differences in how the metals in the artificial tongue absorb light – what scientists call their plasmonic resonance – allowed the team to identify different types of whiskies.

The team used the tongue to sample a selection of whiskies from Glenfiddich, Glen Marnoch and Laphroaig.

The tongue was able to taste the differences between the drinks with greater than 99% accuracy. It was capable of picking up on the subtler distinctions between the same whisky aged in different barrels, and tell the difference between the same whisky aged for 12, 15 and 18 years.

“We call this an artificial tongue,” said Dr Alasdair Clark, of the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering, in a prepared statement, “because it acts similarly to a human tongue – like us, it can’t identify the individual chemicals which make coffee taste different to apple juice but it can easily tell the difference between these complex chemical mixtures.

“We’re not the first researchers to make an artificial tongue, but we’re the first to make a single artificial tongue that uses two different types of nanoscale metal ‘tastebuds,’ which provides more information about the ‘taste’ of each sample and allows a faster and more accurate response.

“While we’ve focused on whisky in this experiment, the artificial tongue could easily be used to ‘taste’ virtually any liquid, which means it could be used for a wide variety of applications. In addition to its obvious potential for use in identifying counterfeit alcohols, it could be used in food safety testing, quality control, security – really any area where a portable, reusable method of tasting would be useful.”