[MM-MALTS-L] Nuclear Testing Helps Identify Fake Vintage Whisk[e]y

[David Hallett]

Found this on the wire today :)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/04/1547215

"Industry experts claim the market for vintage whiskey has been flooded with
fakes that purport to be several hundred years old but instead contain
worthless spirit made just a few years ago. Now researchers at the Oxford
Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit have developed a method that can pinpoint the
date a whiskey was made by detecting traces of radioactive particles created
by nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s. '"It is easy to tell if whiskey is fake
as if it has been produced since the middle of the twentieth century, it has
a very distinctive signature," says Dr. Tom Higham, deputy director of the
facility. Nuclear bomb testing in the 1950s saw levels of carbon-14 in the
atmosphere rise around the world so the amount of isotope absorbed by living
organisms since this time has been artificially elevated. Whiskey extracted
from antique bottles is sent to the laboratory where scientists burn the
liquid and bombard the resulting gas with electrically charged particles so
they can measure the carbon-14 in the sample. In one recent case, a bottle
of 1856 Macallan Rare Reserve was withdrawn from auction at Christies, where
it was expected to sell for up to £20,000, after the scientists found it had
actually been produced in 1950. "So far there have probably been more fakes
among the samples we've tested than real examples of old whiskey," says
Higham.'"

Regards,
David
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