[QUOTE]A dram of vintage Scotch bought by a Chinese millionaire in a Swiss hotel bar for £7,600 was a fake, laboratory tests have concluded.
Analysts from Scotland were called in by the Waldhaus Am See hotel in St Moritz after experts questioned the authenticity of the 2cl shot.
It had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt.
It is believed to be the largest sum ever paid for a poured dram of Scotch.
But analysis found that it was almost certainly not distilled before 1970.
The hotel said it had accepted the findings and reimbursed the customer in full.
Zhang Wei, 36, from Beijing - one of China's highest-earning online writers - had paid just under 10,000 Swiss francs (£7,600, $10,050) for the single shot while visiting the hotel's Devil's Place whisky bar in July.
But suspicions about the spirit's provenance surfaced soon after the purchase, when whisky industry experts spotted discrepancies in the bottle's cork and label from newspaper articles.
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[url]http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-41695774?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook[/url]
Good on them for reimbursing it. Hotel must have gotten scammed from whoever they bought it from too
Whisky is serious business. No, I'm not joking, it really is. Falsifying whisky is a market unto itself.
kinda proves drink connoisseurs might be a tad bit full of themselves though if a bottle of 70s scotch was passed off so easily.
maybe there really was an original bottle but somebody switched it decades ago, who knows
Sounds like an honest mistake from the hotel's part, it's extremely likely that there have been hundreds, possibly thousands, of fakes produced for scamming businesses and less-than-wary individuals.
[QUOTE=Sableye;52849262]kinda proves drink connoisseurs might be a tad bit full of themselves though if a bottle of 70s scotch was passed off so easily.
maybe there really was an original bottle but somebody switched it decades ago, who knows[/QUOTE]
[b]"It had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt."[/b]
it was unopened. you can't test it if it's unopened.
[QUOTE=BeardyDuck;52849354][b]"It had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt."[/b]
it was unopened. you can't test it if it's unopened.[/QUOTE]
Maybe I'm just uninformed of the fake Scotch market but it seems to me that there would be other ways to tell a bottle was fake without opening it.
[QUOTE=chunkymonkey;52849365]Maybe I'm just uninformed of the fake Scotch market but it seems to me that there would be other ways to tell a bottle was fake without opening it.[/QUOTE]
[quote=OP]But suspicions about the spirit's provenance surfaced soon after the purchase, when whisky industry experts spotted discrepancies in the bottle's cork and label from newspaper articles.[/quote]
That's how they found it, just apparently no one had looked as closely at it until it became famous.
[QUOTE=Sableye;52849262]kinda proves drink connoisseurs might be a tad bit full of themselves though if a bottle of 70s scotch was passed off so easily.
[/QUOTE]
What arse did you whip that out of? Odds are the millionaire who tried it isn't an actual whisky drinker by hobby and just did it because it was expensive and ostentatious. Please do not tar an entire hobby like that.
[editline]3rd November 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=chunkymonkey;52849365]Maybe I'm just uninformed of the fake Scotch market but it seems to me that there would be other ways to tell a bottle was fake without opening it.[/QUOTE]
Sort-of, yes/no, maybe. Kind of. Not always.
[QUOTE=BeardyDuck;52849354][b]"It had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt."[/b]
it was unopened. you can't test it if it's unopened.[/QUOTE]
i'm talking about their reaction to it. they didn't drink it and suddenly gasp that it was fake but its probably likely they aren't experts at all.
[QUOTE=Chris Morris;52848559]Whisky is serious business. No, I'm not joking, it really is. Falsifying whisky is a market unto itself.[/QUOTE]
I don't get the hype over super exclusive wine or liquor.
I've had a 200 dollar shot of scotch and it was basically a little nicer than my regular 30 bucks a bottle stuff. I don't understand the clout.
Reminds me of when Penn and Teller's Bullshit did the episode where they made fancy looking meals out of canned shit you got off the shelf, and bottled water samples were all from the same garden hose out back and everyone was real pretentious and thought they were having gourmet stuff because they were gourmet prices
Sometimes the only difference between the expensive and the cheap is psychology
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