Gluten-free spirits and drinks

Resumen

Alcoholic beverages are those containing more than 0,5% (vol/vol)of alcohol. They can be obtained by various processes (fermentation,addition, distillation, extraction, etc.). As there is no establishedclassification of alcoholic beverages, alcoholic concentration is the mostcommonly used: 1) fermented alcoholic beverages such as beer, ciderand wine, and 2) distilled beverages and spirits (higher in alcoholicconcentration).The manufacture of some fermented alcoholic beverages and spiritssometimes involves the use of gluten-containing raw materials (cerealssuch as barley, wheat or rye). For this reason, in many cases it hasbeen thought that they should not be included in the diet of celiacs. Itis also common to add plant material to clarify alcoholic beverages inorder to filter or to remove particles in suspension and sometimes maltproteins or hydrolyzed preparations containing wheat gluten are used.As well as this, the addition of flavorings to some spirits is permittedand most of these are obtained from the fermented raw materials.Despite this, nowadays it is possible to find types of fermentedalcoholic beverages and spirits that do not contain gluten and aresuitable for the celiac population on the market.As a result, gluten analysis of fermented alcoholic beverages andspirits is often needed to confirm their claim to be the gluten-free. Butas gluten is sometimes hydrolyzed, the sandwich R5 ELISA method isnot appropriate when foods and beverages are treated with proteolyticenzymes or when they are fermented. In these cases, other techniquessuch as mass spectrometry (MS) or competitive R5 ELISA have someadvantages over the sandwich method.