Incidents of spirits counterfeiting pose serious health risks to citizens and potential revenue loss to brand owners. The Ocean Optics Spirit Sampler can help to combat increased sales of illicit spirits. This application note describes measurements performed to demonstrate device reproducibility and outlines some of the instrument’s quality control software features.
The Ocean Optics Spirit Sampler scans clear, light and dark liquids, providing information about adulterated and gross counterfeit samples, as well as brand authenticity and quality. The system is based on an Ocean Optics UV-Visible spectrometer and light source, covering the wavelength range from 200-450 nm. Spirit samples are introduced by injecting the liquid into the appropriate measurement channel using a plastic syringe. There are three channels corresponding to three different pathlength flow cells optimized for clear (e.g. vodka), light (e.g. whisky) and dark (e.g. rum) spirits. Rapid referencing and repeated automatic dark correction ensure optimum measurement stability and, therefore, maximum reproducibility in results. Absorbance measurements from samples of rum, whisky and vodka were measured using 10 individual Spirit Sampler devices. Absorbance data was collected at 1 nm intervals between 220-450 nm. Each instrument was switched on and left to complete its initial warm-up. The flow cell was then flushed with distilled water in order to reference the instrument. After taking a reference measurement, we injected the sample spirit into the appropriate flow cell and collected the absorbance spectrum. Absorbance measurements were collected for a total of 130 rum, 68 vodka and 184 whisky samples using the 10 Spirit Sampler units.
All of the absorbance spectra for rum, whisky and vodka samples are shown in Figures 1, 2 and 3. Analytical precision was investigated over the range 220-450 nm. The repeatability of measurements on one sample of brand ranged from +0.01% at 260 nm to +0.03% at 360 nm. Across the 10 instruments, the variability was still low at +0.03% at 260 nm and +0.09% at 360 nm.
The Ocean Optics Spirit Sampler provides reliable and reproducible data for authenticating spirits in the field or in the lab. Samples collected from different Spirit Sampler units can be combined to generate extremely accurate brand signatures with precise thresholds and tolerances.
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