Assessing the Relative Volatility and Beta Radioactivity of Ethanol as a Preliminary Verification of Varietal Authenticity in Philippine Wines and Liquors with Tourism Implications

Alcoholic beverages in the Philippines show significant variation in ethanol content and feedstock, influencing their relative volatility, α, which serves as a strong indicator of the ease of ethanol separation during distillation. This variability arises from differences in the vapor-liquid pseudo-binary equilibrium of the beverages. By constructing a pseudo-binary ethanol-water plot, the ease of dehydrating ethanol was analyzed from a thermodynamic perspective. Using Dalton’s, Raoult’s, Clapeyron, and Trouton’s laws, the study derived the equation: