A NOSE FOR GOOD WHISKY

SCOTCH or Irish, single malt or blended? While the rare whisky enthusiast might be able to distinguish the good stuff from run-of-the-mill by smell alone, most tipplers rely on the label, be it black or otherwise.

Whisky is one of the most popular alcoholic beverages worldwide and, with some high-end brands fetching five or six figures, it’s also a favourite target for fraud. It’s been estimated that up to a third of rare and collectable whiskies could be fakes.

To combat this, researchers have developed an electronic nose (e-nose) that can distinguish between brands, origins, and styles by “sniffing”.

The team used a new enose prototype (called NOS.E), developed at the University of Technology Sydney, to identify the differences between six whiskies by their brand names, regions and styles in less than four minutes.