Using descriptions of flavours or chemical data, artificial intelligence can tell apart whiskies from different countries and identify their constituent aromas
By Matthew Sparkes
19 December 2024
Colour, smell, taste and chemical constituents can all be used to distinguish whiskies
Jane Barlow/PA Images/Alamy
Artificial intelligence can tell Scotch whisky from American whiskey and identify its strongest constituent aromas more reliably than human experts – by using data rather than tasting the drinks.
Andreas Grasskamp at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Germany and his colleagues trained an AI molecular odour prediction algorithm called OWSum on descriptions of different whiskies.
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Then, in a study involving 16 samples – nine types of Scotch whisky and seven types of American bourbon or whiskey – they tasked OWSum with telling drinks from the two nations apart based on keyword descriptions of their flavours, such as flowery, fruity, woody or smoky. Using these alone, the AI could tell which country a drink came from with almost 94 per cent accuracy.
Because the complex aroma of these spirits is determined by the absence or presence of many chemical compounds, the researchers also fed the AI a reference dataset of 390 molecules commonly found in whiskies. When they gave the AI data from gas chromatography–mass spectrometry showing which molecules were present in the sample spirits, it boosted OWSum’s ability to differentiate American from Scotch drams to 100 per cent.
Compounds such as menthol and citronellol were a dead giveaway for American whiskey, while the presence of methyl decanoate and heptanoic acid pointed to Scotch.