Application of Electronic Nose Based on Fast GC for Authenticity Assessment of Polish Homemade Liqueurs Called Nalewka

The possibility of application of electronic nose based on fast GC for differentiation of three types of cherry liqueurs, namely Polish homemade liqueurs called nalewka , commercially available liqueurs labeled as nalewka , and commercial liqueurs, was investigated. This device was equipped with two parallel connected columns with different stationary phases coupled to two ultrasensitive flame ionization detectors (μ-FIDs). Four data analysis methods were used, namely principal component analysis (PCA), discriminant function analysis (DFA), soft independent modeling of class analogies (SIMCA), and statistical quality control (SQC). Application of electronic nose based on fast GC system allows identification of volatile organic compounds and compare aroma profiles of all three types of cherry liqueurs. Only DFA allows for full discrimination of all groups of samples. Application of PCA, SIMCA, and SQC analysis allows only for the differentiation of homemade and commercial liqueurs, but not for separation between two groups of commercial liqueurs. The electronic nose based on fast GC provides a possibility of effective and rapid aroma profile comparison (the total time of analysis is 93 s) of selected alcohols. In addition, the identification and tentative semiqualitative comparison of the amount of selected compounds of the volatile fraction of these beverages using the HS-SPME/GC×GC-TOFMS technique were done. This work presents the proposal of protection of this traditional product through elaborated methodology and rapid authentication assessment of Polish nalewka made from cherries.