Direction de recherche

Where we are today

silkywhisky publishes weekly an independent valuation of Scotch single-malt bottlings using a documented cost-floor model plus a quality grade plus retail price observations from multiple European sources. The math is transparent; the data is transparent; the editorial position on premium pricing is the disclaimer linked from /methodology.

Where we want to go

Two questions about a bottle of Scotch are not currently answerable by any independent consumer-facing source:

• Does the cask programme on the label match the cask programme in the bottle?
• How much caramel coloring (E150a) was added at filling, and is the colour you see acquired or engineered?

Both questions are answerable in a laboratory with two pieces of equipment in routine food-chemistry use — a UV-visible spectrophotometer and a fluorescence spectrometer — applied to retail-acquired samples against a calibrated reference set. The science is mature; the application to a public, continuously-updated dataset of consumer Scotch is not.

Our next phase is to do that application. Take publicly-bought bottles, run them against the established protocols, publish the spectra and the inferred conclusions per bottle alongside the existing valuation. Detect cask claims at variance with reality. Detect undeclared colouring. Track distillery-by-distillery how cask programmes drift over time. Tie chemistry to retail prices on the same chart.

Academic precedent

Methodology for this work exists in the peer-reviewed literature. We will be standing on shoulders. Among the relevant streams:

• University of Glasgow chemistry work on UV-Vis and fluorescence classification of Scotch by cask programme (Mountford and collaborators, 2014–2019).
• University of Strathclyde synchronous-fluorescence approaches to spirits authentication and producer classification.
• European food-chemistry literature on E150a quantification in aged spirits (multiple groups in Germany, Italy, and the UK, 2010–2024).
• The broader anti-counterfeiting spectroscopy literature for whisky brand authentication, much of which is industry-funded but publicly readable.

Our contribution is not the chemistry. It is the application: continuous coverage of consumer-relevant bottles, named publicly, coupled to weekly retail pricing data, with raw spectra published openly. That posture is journalistic rather than academic, and it is the part nobody has yet occupied.

Principles

When this work happens, it will operate under the same editorial principles as the rest of silkywhisky:

• Sample selection is silkywhisky's, not anyone else's. Bottles for branded findings are bought from retail channels at our discretion.
• Raw spectra and methodology are published alongside any conclusion. Reproducibility is the integrity check.
• Samples supplied by any party with a commercial interest in the result enter the calibration dataset only, never the brand-attribution outputs.
• Findings publish regardless of whether they favour the producers tested. Where producers wish to reply, we publish the reply alongside.

What we still need

Laboratory-grade UV-Vis spectrophotometry equipment that silkywhisky does not currently own, and either bench time at a research lab able to run the protocol, or our own benchtop instrument. The path we prefer is an academic collaboration that benefits both parties — silkywhisky brings a curated bottle dataset and an editorial platform with reach; the partner brings instrument capability and methodology expertise; joint authorship and joint data ownership govern the output.

We are not currently accepting donations or sponsorship. When the appropriate moment arrives, the framework under which any external support is accepted will be published before any funds are committed.