Got what I’m convinced was a bad bottle of Glemmoragie 10 year single malt in Hualien. I don’t want to say where exactly, but it was a large chain supermarket. Had a terrible headache this morning, which doesn’t make sense. I had a big dinner and, as always, was Very careful about hydration during and after drinking. Drank from the same bottle the night before and felt extremely sleepy after two small glasses. And the taste seemed a bit off: smelled the same but the fruit flavors didn’t come through when tasting. I’m back in Taipei where I have another bottle of the same stuff. After a drink or two from the bottle here in Taipei, I’m even more convinced that the bottle in Hualien wasn’t the real thing.
Not from the store, but I was given a bottle of fake scotch at a KTV. I don’t recall what brand it was trying to pass itself off as, but it was another well known. It was a big well know establishment; I don’t know who was at fault, but it was a baaaad fake
Oh sh*t. I won’t b get excited for them switching out an expensive brand for a cheap brand, that’s to be expected.
What do you think they were replacing your whiskey with? Just a cheaper whiskey or something else more interesting. Weren’t people going blind after drinking fake whiskey during the American prohibition?
Didn’t they put something in order watered down milk a few years ago to make it seem that had the correct protein content?
What stuff could they put in your whiskey to stretch it out or cheapen it?
I will never know if my gut feeling was right, but my guess would be that they took 100 bottles, opened them, filled half of two hundred bottles in copy bottles, then tipped off these two hundred bottles with an odorless and tasteless chemical. Something like that.
Haha my father in law (R.I.P.) went to jail for selling fake whiskey. It was in the papers for a while. He’d go to the Philippines, buy whatever crap they were distilling there, and dump it into a Johnnie Walker bottle. He made a lot of money that way. Some of the money was seized, some of the money’s sitting in various South American bank accounts that no one’s able to open.
But in my case, the Glenmorangie 10 year smell was still there, but the taste was off, by which I mean it was lacking the full fruitiness. Very crafty operation if what I suspect is true.
A bit dangerous too maybe. I felt extremely sleepy after drinking this stuff. And that headache the next day. I had the worst swim in about year that morning.
We drank it all! My wife and I drank it over the course of three days. I drank what was left (about 200ml?) on the last night, and it wasn’t until I woke up with a splitting headache that we started putting the pieces together (my wife’s headache the night before, my feeling that something was off when drinking it, my sleepiness). We are now back in Taipei and the bottle was thrown away. I will never get a bottle there again. I will stick to Costco and the two liquor chains that seem to be very careful about this type of thing (one of the two puts their own sticker/paper stamp on each bottle).
Interesting to read about this, and that it was from a big supermarket chain. I have no idea if fake stuff is common, but I admit I’m still hesitant about the many no-name whisky retailers (the shops have no name, not the whiskeys): there’s just something… odd… about a place with such expensive stock and zero spent on rent, employees, decor, displays, dusting, etc.
It’s not common, but does happen. Usually they sell highly rectified spirit with whisky flavouring, watered down to 40ish percent ABV. There are also a lot of parallel imports, basically the real thing but brought in from overseas, undercutting the official importers.
Hard to avoid, even where you wouldn’t suspect it. Thus, find a trustworthy wine and spirits merchant and stick to it.
I don’t know about fakes, but I’ve had some pretty awful “special Taiwan-only” stuff. Distilleries like to sell their bad batches here. Mark the bottle as a special run just for Taiwan and put a high price tag on it. Helps if the alcohol content is high, Taiwanese will buy anything expensive with a lot of alcohol in it for the “status”.
I rarely login to forumosa, mainly just read, but made a special effort today because of this post.
I personally think fake whisky is a huge problem in Taiwan. Not only at liquor stores but in the supermarkets too.
Every whisky I’ve bought from liquor stores has been significantly cheaper than you’d find in a UK supermarket and has tasted nothing like what they should. They are so harsh and acidic even as a supposed 40% it’s almost undrinkable. Not to mention the taste being off or the bad headache afterwards.
So I switched to buying from large supermarkets. Ironically, I too bought a Glenmorangie 10yo, I bought it from Carrefour. Just awful and nothing like the real thing.
I’ve been told I’m imagining things and there’s no way fake whisky is a big industry in Taiwan… I’d say it’s the perfect place to do it. Poor moral compasses + uneducated whisky audience who buys a lot of it = perfect environment.
I now only buy very very cheap brand whisky from supermarkets and they’ve been fine. It seems the price is too low to tempt people into fiddling with it. Famous Grouse will keep me satisfied until I can get back to the UK.
This kind of thing is rife in China but with the gutter oil scandal here, it’s entirety plausible this happens in Taiwan too.
I’ve found 橡木桶 and my9 to be 100% reliable. I imagine they import directly from the countries of origin, but I might be wrong about that. 橡木桶 put their label on each bottle (of at least their whiskies).
I deal almost exclusively with those two places now.
I recently got a bottle of this from a shop that has otherwise been excellent, and also found it wasn’t as smooth as I remembered. I chalked it up to too much otherwise excellent whiskey lately, and just the other day I awoke after once again drinking too much (from the various bottles in my collection) and marvelled again at the absence of headache. I’m not saying that there’s no fake whiskey here, but I don’t think it is a widespread problem and certainly I doubt Carrefour would be systemically involved.
I go to this place in Kaohsiung, and other than the one questionable bottle of Glenmorangie (maybe they sent a bad batch to Taiwan?) I’ve been very happy: 振昌洋酒.Jhenchang Wine&Spirits Shop Kaohsiung
