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Expensive fake

The story of a Chinese tourist paying over £7,700 for a dram of ‘1878 Macallan’
Single Malt Scotch has taken an alarming twist after it was pointed out the bottle was
likely one of a run of famous fakes uncovered in the early 2000s.

The photo shows the
Chinese tourist with the
hotel’s manager.

The unnamed man made the
news earlier this year when
he had paid 9,999 Swiss
Francs for a single 20ml
dram of the 1878 Macallan at
the Hotel Waldhaus am See
in Saint Moritz, Switzerland.

The story seems to highlight
the current heights (or stupidity depending on one’s point of view) of the craze for
rare Scotch, including miniatures, and what people are prepared to for it.

Now it seems the story also represents the other, more unfortunate, side of rare
Scotch – fakes. As reported on Scotchwhisky.com, a number of whisky experts and
enthusiasts have pointed out that the bottle is very likely from a run of infamous
knock-offs that were produced in Italy some years ago as the Scotch mania began to
gather momentum. The possible provenance of the bottle was brought up on one
site called Whiskyfun, run by the experienced collector Serge Valentin.

A number of remarkably similar bottles were bought by
The Macallan Distillery in the early 2000s to bolster its
old library stock but subsequent tests revealed the
whiskies to be fake with the spirit inside probably no
older than 10 years or so.

Among the notable ‘tells’ that the bottle might not be all
it claims to be is the condition of the label which is too
new for such a rarity and the cork, which doesn’t look
like one that has actually spent over 100 years in a
bottle.

Another crucial detail is that the label claims that the
Speyside malt is guaranteed by “Roderick Kemp,
proprietor, Macallan and Talisker Distilleries Ltd.” Kemp
was a giant of the Scotch distilling industry in the mid to

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