The world's most expensive whiskey, which is 139 years old, has been revealed as fake after investigation was conducted on the scotch bottle. The dram of scotch whiskey was sold to Chinese multimillionaire and online writer Zhang Wei, by St. Moritz Hotel, Switzerland in August for US $10,000, which is believed to be the highest amount paid for a single shot of scotch.
However, it was an utter disappointment for the 36–year-old writer, as the scotch turned out to be a fake one, leaving him downhearted. According to BBC reports, the Chinese writer was impressed by the honesty shown by the manager of the hotel, Sandra Bernasconi, who flew down to refund the amount.
It was thought to be the only unsealed bottle of the celebrated vintage until Wei found it in the Devil's place Whiskey Bar. Once the news hit headlines across all the newspapers, whiskey experts began to question the discrepancies in the label and cork, which persisted the company to send the dram of scotch to Oxford researchers.
They found out through carbon dating test that there was 95 percent probability of the spirit being distilled between 1970 and 1972. Further, alcohol analyst Tatlock and Thomson showed that there was a 95 percent probability that the spirit had a blend of scotch which ruled it out as a single malt.
The Swiss hotel, which stocks 2,500 different whiskeys, never had a hint that one of their collections of whiskey would turn out to be fake. The hotel website said that they never wished to sell the scotch of whiskey until Wei insisted to buy the Macallan, quoted BBC Scotland. So, Bernasconi called up his father, who in turn asked him to sell the whiskey as they would not get such a customer even in 20 years.
But Zhang was not left with a hole in his pocket as the hotel manager flew to China to reimburse the amount, after showing the results to him.There was also a similar incident where investigators found out that 113-year-old Laphroaig worth thousands of pounds was a fraud as the sealed bottle which was of the correct age and design contained cheaply blended whiskey which was made between 2007 and 2009.
