Why we're starting with whisky
Whisky is widely counterfeited, heavily branded, and already well studied by scientists. That makes it the right first test for our pen.
Every product needs a first job. For drinkYangu, that job is telling a consumer whether the whisky in their glass matches the genuine product on the label. Here's why we chose whisky rather than, say, vodka or beer.
1. Branded spirits are what counterfeiters copy
Counterfeiting is a branding crime. Someone refills a genuine bottle or prints a convincing label to sell cheaper liquid at a premium price. Kenya's illicit alcohol market has several parts, but counterfeit and illicit brands are a distinct and significant slice of it (The Star, 2026). That's exactly the case a brand-matching tool can address.
2. Science has already shown it's possible
We aren't starting from zero. Researchers have told whiskies apart using several different techniques:
- Electrochemistry. A low-cost, disposable voltammetric "electronic tongue" made with copper and gold electrodes separated expensive whiskies from cheap ones and detected adulteration (Novakowski, Bertotti & Paixão, 2011). A later study profiled wines and Scotch whiskies using metal electrodes in a simple electrolyte (Wójcik et al., 2019).
- Optics. A nanoscale "artificial tongue" from the University of Glasgow distinguished whiskies, including the same whisky at different ages, with over 99% accuracy (Macias et al., 2019). UV–Vis spectroscopy identified counterfeit samples of well-known whisky blends (Martins et al., 2017).
We chose electrochemistry because the electronics are small, cheap and low-power enough to fit in a pen.
3. Whisky has a rich chemical fingerprint
Whisky picks up many compounds from grain, fermentation, distillation and years in wooden casks. That complexity is hard to fake cheaply, and it gives a sensor more to "taste" than a near-neutral spirit like vodka does.
What this doesn't mean
Starting with whisky doesn't mean we've solved whisky. We have not yet run our own experiments. The published studies were done in laboratories, on specific brands, with careful sample handling. Our job is to find out how much of that accuracy survives in a pen, in a bar, in Nairobi. We'll publish what we find, including the failures.