lnu.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Dilution of whisky - the molecular perspective
Linnaeus University, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Biomedical Sciences. (PPL;Linnaeus Ctr Biomat Chem, BMC)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7392-0591
Linnaeus University, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Biomedical Sciences. (CCBG;Linnaeus Ctr Biomat Chem, BMC)ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8696-3104
2017 (English)In: Scientific Reports, E-ISSN 2045-2322, Vol. 7, no 6489Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Whisky is distilled to around 70% alcohol by volume (vol-%) then diluted to about 40 vol-%, and often drunk after further slight dilution to enhance its taste. The taste of whisky is primarily associated with amphipathic molecules, such as guaiacol, but why and how dilution enhances the taste is not well understood. We carried out computer simulations of water-ethanol mixtures in the presence of guaiacol, providing atomistic details on the structure of the liquid mixture. We found that guaiacol is preferentially associated with ethanol, and, therefore, primarily found at the liquid-air interface in mixtures that contain up to 45 vol-% of ethanol. At ethanol concentrations of 59 vol-% or higher, guaiacol is increasingly surrounded by ethanol molecules and is driven to the bulk. This indicates that the taste of guaiacol in the whisky would be enhanced upon dilution prior to bottling. Our findings may apply to other flavour-giving amphipathic molecules and could contribute to optimising the production of spirits for desired tastes. Furthermore, it sheds light on the molecular structure of water-alcohol mixtures that contain small solutes, and reveals that interactions with the water may be negligible already at 89 vol-% of ethanol.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Nature Publishing Group, 2017. Vol. 7, no 6489
Keywords [en]
Whisky, dilution, guaiacol
National Category
Physical Chemistry Theoretical Chemistry
Research subject
Chemistry, Biochemistry; Chemistry, Organic Chemistry; Chemistry, Physical Chemistry
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-67349DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-06423-5ISI: 000407863100001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85027838994OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-67349DiVA, id: diva2:1135149
Funder
Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), SNIC/2014-1-404 SNIC/2015-1-444
Note

Correction published in: Scientific Reports, 2018, vol 8, Article number 16448. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-34169-1

Available from: 2017-08-22 Created: 2017-08-22 Last updated: 2022-09-15Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(4772 kB)877 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 4772 kBChecksum SHA-512
49fd49458505cf77b8cd02eeb64c476e3abe2c138fb246ef969cced21c30f2fbeed501e37d88d9e3a286dec1238b1c700446bf1292c29953dd54ff46b920d50d
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full textScopusErratum

Authority records

Karlsson, Björn C. G.Friedman, Ran

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Karlsson, Björn C. G.Friedman, Ran
By organisation
Department of Chemistry and Biomedical Sciences
In the same journal
Scientific Reports
Physical ChemistryTheoretical Chemistry

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 881 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 1066 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf