How can you recognise a counterfeit bottle of whisky?

A counterfeit bottle usually gives itself away on the outside: a label that does not fit the period, a closure that has been replaced, or a fill level that does not match the age.

With an old bottling, look at the typeface and print quality of the label, at glue that looks too fresh, and at a capsule or cork that sits crooked or looks too new. A bottle that has stood for decades shows traces: discolouration of the paper, slight wear at the edges, a cork that has dried out.

Also compare the text on the label with what is legally required. If an age is stated, it must refer to the youngest whisky in the bottle.

The British tax authority HMRC keeps a public register in which you can look up whether a brand or a production location for Scotch whisky has been verified.

The Scotch Whisky Association points buyers and the trade to that register, the Spirit Drinks Verification Look-up. If a brand is not listed there, the association says the presumption is that it is not genuine Scotch. HMRC checks each verified location once every two years.

The register says nothing about a single bottle, but it does say something about the brand. For an old bottling of a brand that was never registered, that is often enough reason to walk away.

An age statement on a bottle of whisky must refer to the youngest whisky in the bottle, not the oldest.

The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 lay down that requirement, and Regulation (EU) 2019/787 does so for spirit drinks in the European Union. Scotch must also mature for at least three years in oak casks of no more than 700 liters and retain at least 40 percent alcohol at bottling.

A bottle that presents itself as forty years old but has no conclusive story about origin and ageing deserves extra attention.

Nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s increased the amount of radioactive carbon in the air, which means the distillation year of a whisky can be read from the liquid itself.

Researchers at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre examined fifty-five rare bottles in 2018 that had been bought on the second-hand market. Twenty-one of them turned out to be fake or not distilled in the year stated on the label. Had they been genuine, those twenty-one bottles would together have been worth about 635,000 pounds.

For private individuals such a test is rarely feasible. The study does show how large the share of fakes on the open collectors’ market can be.

With an older bottle, ask about its purchase history: from whom the bottle was bought, when, and whether the closure was ever replaced.

A shop that buys directly from importers and distilleries can answer that question. In a purchase between private individuals that trail is usually missing, and then only the bottle itself remains as evidence.

Verkoop van alcohol is in Nederland aan achttien jaar en ouder: NIX18.