<div align="justify">Scientists have developed an 'artificial tongue' which can help novice drinkers determine the difference between a Scottish malt whisky and an Irish blend.<br /><br />The synthetic tongue can pick out different qualities in whiskies, such as their brand, age and country of origin using fluorescent dyes.<br /><br />The process is quicker and cheaper than many of the existing methods, researchers said.<br /><br />"We can use this to detect fake whiskies. If you buy a crate of expensive whiskies, you can test if they are actually what you think they are," said Uwe Bunz at Heidelberg University in Germany.<br /><br />Current techniques use mass spectroscopy to identify the chemical composition of a whisky. However, the new synthetic tongue uses a combination of 22 different fluorescent dyes.<br /><br />When mixed with a whisky, the brightness of each dye subtly changes, revealing a specific flavour profile for that drink.<br /><br />Testing the dyes on 33 different whiskies, researchers found that their approach could accurately tell them apart, 'New Scientist' reported.<br /><br />Distillations from Scotland looked different to those from Ireland or the US, and blended whiskies had a different fingerprint to single malts.<br /><br />The dyes also distinguished between whiskies that had been aged for different lengths of time.<br /><br />By building up an overall flavour profile in much the same way as our tongues do, the approach is good at telling if two bottles of whisky are the same. </div>
<div align="justify">Scientists have developed an 'artificial tongue' which can help novice drinkers determine the difference between a Scottish malt whisky and an Irish blend.<br /><br />The synthetic tongue can pick out different qualities in whiskies, such as their brand, age and country of origin using fluorescent dyes.<br /><br />The process is quicker and cheaper than many of the existing methods, researchers said.<br /><br />"We can use this to detect fake whiskies. If you buy a crate of expensive whiskies, you can test if they are actually what you think they are," said Uwe Bunz at Heidelberg University in Germany.<br /><br />Current techniques use mass spectroscopy to identify the chemical composition of a whisky. However, the new synthetic tongue uses a combination of 22 different fluorescent dyes.<br /><br />When mixed with a whisky, the brightness of each dye subtly changes, revealing a specific flavour profile for that drink.<br /><br />Testing the dyes on 33 different whiskies, researchers found that their approach could accurately tell them apart, 'New Scientist' reported.<br /><br />Distillations from Scotland looked different to those from Ireland or the US, and blended whiskies had a different fingerprint to single malts.<br /><br />The dyes also distinguished between whiskies that had been aged for different lengths of time.<br /><br />By building up an overall flavour profile in much the same way as our tongues do, the approach is good at telling if two bottles of whisky are the same. </div>