bootleg bottles of Johnnie Walker for instance,
but I did not know that it also happens in premier vintage whiskeys dated
from 1847 to 1978, where you or I would not expect the fakery to take place, but it does, and here is the good news, thanks to the atomic bombs that we let off, whiskey can be dated, here is how whiskey drinkers should thank the nuclear age, nuclear bombs that were detonated decades ago spewed the
radioactive isotope carbon-14 into the atmosphere; from there, the isotope was
absorbed by plants and other living organisms, and began to decay after the
organisms died. Traces of this excess carbon-14 can therefore be found in
barley that was harvested and distilled to make whisky, carbon-14 decays at a known rate; by calculating the amount of the isotope in a
given whisky batch, scientists can then determine if a bottle's contents were
produced after the start of the nuclear age — and if that age matches the date
written on the bottle's label, scientists tested bottles of whiskey, and found about half of
them were counterfeit! you can read how they did that at LiveScience, photograph ctj71081, fake vintage whiskey? who would have thought it!
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