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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Nuclear-bomb carbon unmasks fraudulent luxury whisky

Carbon-14 dating reveals that an ‘antique’ Scotch is roughly 150 years younger than claimed.
Worker opening wooden whisky cask in whisky distillery.

Casks of whisky in a distillery. Isotopes released by twentieth-century nuclear tests have helped to expose young whisky disguised in old bottles. Credit: Getty

Swindlers can make a killing by passing off recently distilled whisky as old and rare Scotch, but the fallout from nuclear bombs can expose such fakery.

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Nature 577, 600 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00121-5

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