A Chinese millionaire paid US$10,000 for a glass of fake 1868 whisky. But he’s not the only victim of the counterfeit whisky wave
- Almost 40 per cent of ‘rare vintage’ whiskies tested by Scottish experts were either fake or distilled in different years than they were labelled
- One expert said that in 30 years of testing he had never found a single genuine bottle of pre-1900 whisky
A whisky dealer has warned that the rare whisky market has been flooded with fakes after laboratory tests found one-third of samples were counterfeit.
The Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) found that 21 out of 55 bottles of allegedly vintage Scotch whisky, some apparently worth tens of thousands of pounds, were either fake or were not distilled in the year claimed.
The fakes included one purporting to be a bottle of Ardbeg 1885, a single malt; a rare Thorne’s Heritage early 20th century blended whisky; and an Ardbeg malt allegedly bottled in the 1960s.
The samples were supplied by Rare Whisky 101, a dealer in vintage and high-value whiskies, after it noticed a spate of fraudulent and counterfeit rare malt whiskies being offered to dealers and auction houses.
Refund for young Chinese man who paid US$10,000 for a shot of fake 1878 whisky
Last year, a dram from a bottle purporting to be an 1878 Macallan single malt at a Swiss hotel was exposed as a fake by Rare Whisky 101, a Scottish alcohol analysis company, and a laboratory at the University of Oxford. In 2017, a Chinese millionaire had paid 9,999 Swiss francs (US$10,000) for a single glass of the whisky.