Chemical Analysis Finds A Whiskey's Unique Fingerprint

From Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now:

Just as Scottish and Irish accents are clearly different from American English ones, so are Scotch and Irish whiskeys chemically distinct from their American counterparts, and ongoing research is analyzing exactly how. Food science researchers at the University of California at Davis have been studying different whiskies to determine whether they can tell them apart, scientifically. Research director Thomas Collins gave a talk at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting today about the university's work, especially on American whiskeys. "Right now, we can do a pretty good job of separating, for example, Scotch whiskies from bourbons and other American whiskeys and also Canadian and Irish whiskeys," he said during the talk, which the American Chemical Society recorded. "When you narrow it down into whiskeys from a particular region, the process gets a little more difficult because they're more similar to each other." The researchers are looking into the data more closely to try to distinguish chemically between American whiskey types, Collins said.

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