Whisky Forensics: The Fake Scotch Case is Solved!

As reported by The Times, this counterfeit is now finally expected to be brought to an end with the help of – water!

Scottish scientists have mapped out the isotopic fingerprint of all the fresh water in Scotland with a method so sensitive that it can pick out the signature of the water from every region of Scotland. They are planning to compare the isotope ratio in an authentic Whisky with the suspected counterfeit.

The fact that whisky is produced from three basic ingredients is a benefit: “The provenance of the barley can be a bit of a grey area, as it is sometimes sourced from England in years when there has been a poor yield north of the border, but the water used to make the mash is usually sourced as locally as possible to the distillery,” explained Dr Wolfram Meier-Augenstein, professor of isotope forensics at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee and Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.



This is an excerpt of the article, written by Jeremy Watson for The Times.