ABSTRACTThe feasibility of Fourier transform near-infrared spectroscopy for rapid determination of ethyl pentanoate in Chinese liquor was investigated. A total of 108 liquor samples from production line were analyzed with Fourier transform near-infrared transmission spectroscopy. The calibration model for ethyl pentanoate content prediction was established with partial least square, and validated using internal cross validation. In a calibration set (80 samples), the coefficient of determination was 0.958, with the corresponding root mean square error of cross validation 0.020 g L−1. In a validation set (28 samples), the coefficient of determination was 0.964, with the root mean square errors of prediction 0.023 g L−1, and the bias value (0.005 g L−1) for the validation set was less than the bias confidence limits value (0.009 g L−1), indicating that the resulting near-infrared spectroscopy prediction model has good performance for online rapid determination of ethyl pentanoate in Chinese liquor. The determination of ethyl pentanoate in liquor can be completed in less than 2 min per sample using the near-infrared spectroscopy prediction model. The near-infrared spectroscopy combining chemometrics as a rapid analytical method has a promising application prospect of application in the liquor production field.