Vodka is the most popular alcoholic beverage in Poland, Russia and other Eastern European countries, made from ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin that has been produced via fermentation of potatoes, grains or other agricultural products. Despite distillation and multiple filtering, it is not possible to produce 100 % ethanol. The solution with a minimum ethanol content of 96 %, which is used to produce vodkas, also contains trace amounts of other compounds such as, esters, aldehydes, higher alcohols, methanol, acetates, acetic acid and fusel oil. Regarding that fact, it is very important to carry on research on the analysis of the composition and verifying the authenticity of the produced vodkas. This paper summarizes the studies of vodka composition and verifying the authenticity and detection of falsified products. It also includes the methods for analysing vodkas, such as: using gas, ion and liquid chromatography coupled with different types of detectors, electronic nose, electronic tongue, conductivity measurements, isotope analysis, atomic absorption spectroscopy, near infrared spectroscopy, spectrofluorometry and mass spectrometry. In some cases, the use of chemometric methods and preparation techniques were also described.

Spirit-based beverages are alcoholic drinks; their production processes are dependent on the type and origin of raw materials. The composition of this complex matrix is difficult to analyze, and scientists commonly choose gas chromatography techniques for this reason. With a wide selection of extraction methods and detectors it is possible to provide qualitative and quantitative analysis for many chemical compounds with various functional groups. This article describes different types of gas chromatography techniques and their most commonly used associated extraction techniques (e.g., LLE, SPME, SPE, SFE, and SBME) and detectors (MS, TOFMS, FID, ECD, NPD, AED, O or EPD). Additionally, brief characteristics of internationally popular spirit-based beverages and application of gas chromatography to the analysis of selected alcoholic drinks are presented.

Agricultural distillates (raw spirits) are alcoholic liquids obtained through distillation (preceded by alcoholic fermentation) of specific agricultural products that do not have the properties of ethyl alcohol or a spirit, but still retain the aroma and taste of the raw ingredients used. This review is a brief overview of agricultural distillates and of some methods commonly used (GC‐MS, GC‐FID, GC‐O, electronic nose) for performing quality assessments and for determining the composition and botanical origins of the raw spirits. Copyright © 2016 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

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.