Differentiation of Peats Used in the Preparation of Malt for Scotch Whisky Production Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

It is not known if peats derived from different areas of Scotland have distinctive chemical constituents that could impact on malt whisky in discernible organoleptic ways. Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy was used as a high throughput screening method to investigate discrimination of a large number of peat samples from six different geographical origins around Scotland. The data were analysed statistically (using principal component-discriminant function analysis) and the results showed a difference between peat samples from different geographical origins. Therefore, we have shown that FT-IR spectroscopy provides a quick and simple method for differentiating peat types.