A rapid and sensitive method for dimethylsulphide analysis in Brazilian sugar cane sugar spirits and other distilled beverages

a purge and trap concentrator coupled to gas chromatography was used to quantify dimethylsulphide in distilled beverages. a very good performance was obtained using a hp-ffap column and a mass selective detector operating in sim mode (m/z 62): detection limit 8 x 10-9 mol l-1; good repeatability and total time of analysis 25 minutes. the method has been applied for sixty samples of alcoholic beverages (cacha？as, tiquiras, grappas, whiskies, brandies, vodkas, rum and a tequila). the cacha？as exhibit the highest content of dimethylsulphide (median 3.16 x 10-4 mol l-1), followed by grappa (median 1.45 x 10-4 mol l-1). the presence of dimethylsulphide was not observed in the samples of rum.