FT-IR combined with chemometrics in the quality evaluation of Nongxiangxing baijiu

Recently, there has been an increasing demand for developing a reliable method to assess the quality of liquor in the baijiu industry quickly and accurately. The present study sought to establish a strategy for rapid quantitative analysis of the primary flavor components in Nongxiangxing baijiu. Under the experimental conditions, 7 of the 10 major flavor components in Nongxiangxing baijiu could be quantified effectively, such as ethyl butyrate (R2p = 0.9942), ethyl lactate (R2p = 0.9438), n-butanol (R2p = 0.9048), isobutanol (R2p = 0.9696), acetic acid (R2p = 0.9600), butyric acid (R2p = 0.8448), caproic acid (R2p = 0.9971). This result indicates that FT-IR combined with quantitative chemometric modeling could be a potential approach for rapid quality assessment of Nongxiangxing baijiu. Overall, this study provides a theoretical basis for subsequent related studies on Nongxiangxing baijiu.