Diana 700: Determination of Ethanol Content in Alcoholic Beverages

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), regulates the production of spirits like Vodka or Whiskey by distilled spirits plants (DSPs). TTB verifies the proof of the distilled spirits distributed and sold in the U.S. to ensure that they are correctly labeled and taxed.

This Application Report describes the distillation of creamy liqueurs using a sample of Irish cream liqueur performed with the distillation analyzer Diana 700.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, TTB, offers a guideline for gauging the alcohol content in alcoholic beverages using a manual distillation as a reference method, it involves distilling the alcohol from the beverage and determining the concentration of the distilled alcohol solution based on temperature -corrected density measurements using a hydrometer or density meter.

This procedure thus provides a reliable way to isolate and accurately measure the alcohol in beverages that contain higher amounts of dissolved solids (e.g. sugars, extracts, flavorings, etc.) which obscures the true alcohol content.

For spirits containing no more than 400 mg/100 mL of dissolved solids the true proof or defined measure of the alcohol content can be done using a hydrometer or density meter.

For spirits containing more than 400 mg/100 mL of dissolved solids, the use of a hydrometer or density meter will only provide the apparent proof of the spirits. This is not a defined measure of the alcohol content because apparent proof is influenced by dissolved solids.

When the spirits contain more than 400 mg/100 mL but no more than 600 mg/100 mL of solids the proof can be done by evaporation.

If the spirits contain more than 600 mg/100 mL of solids, according part 30 title 27 of the gauging manual the distillation is the obligatory method.

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