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An artificial ‘tongue’ that can taste subtle differences between drams of whisky could help tackle the counterfeit alcohol trade, scientists say.  Engineers from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde built the tiny taster, which exploits the optical properties of gold and aluminium to test the tipples. Sub-microscopic slices of the two metals, arranged in a checkerboard pattern, act as the ‘tastebuds’ in the team’s artificial tongue. The researchers poured samples of whisky over the tastebuds – which are about 500 times smaller than their human equivalents – and measured how they absorb light while submerged.  Analysis of the subtle differences in how the metals in the artificial tongue absorb light allowed the team to identify different types of whiskies.  The team used the tongue to sample whiskies such as Glenfiddich, Glen Marnoch and Laphroaig, and it was able to taste the differences between the drinks with greater than 99% accuracy. It was capable of picking up on the subtler distinctions between the same whisky aged in different barrels, and tell the difference between the same whisky aged for 12, 15 and 18 years.  Dr Alasdair Clark, of the University of Glasgow’s, said: “We call this an artificial tongue because it acts similarly to a human tongue – like us, it can’t identify the individual chemicals which make coffee taste different to apple juice but it can easily tell the difference between these complex chemical mixtures.  “We’re not the first researchers to make an artificial tongue, but we’re the first to make a single artificial tongue that uses two different types of nanoscale metal ‘tastebuds’, which provides more information about the ‘taste’ of each sample and allows a faster and more accurate response.  “While we’ve focused on whisky in this experiment, the artificial tongue could easily be used to ‘taste’ virtually any liquid, which means it could be used for a wide variety of applications. In addition to its obvious potential for use in identifying counterfeit alcohols, it could be used in food safety testing, quality control, security – really any area where a portable, reusable method of tasting would be useful.”  The team’s paper, titled ‘Whisky tasting using a bimetallic nanoplasmonic tongue’, is published in Nanoscale.