Predicting Vodka Adulteration: A Combination of Electronic Tongue and Artificial Neural Networks

An artificial neural network was used to build models caple of predicting and quantifying vodka adulteration with methanol and/or tap water. A voltammetric electronic tongue based on gold and copper microelectrodes was used, and 310 analyses were performed. Vodkas were adulterated with tap water (5 to 50% (v/v)), methanol (1 to 13% (v/v)), and with a fixed addition of 5% methanol and tap water varying from 5 to 50% (v/v). The classification model showed 99.5% precision, and it correctly predicted the type of adulterant in all samples. Regarding the regression model, the root mean squared error was 3.464% and 0.535% for the water and methanol addition, respectively, and the prediction of the adulterant content presented an R 2 0.9511 for methanol and 0.9831 for water adulteration.