WASHINGTON, DC- OCTOBER 08: Photos for a story about the popularity of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon, … [+]
The Washington Post via Getty Images
Counterfeit goods is a huge problem globally with losses estimated as high as 4.5 trillion dollars.
and while counterfeiting of luxury items such as handbags, watches, clothing and even wine can result in tremendous financial losses, counterfeit prescription drugs can present serious health dangers.
And then there is bourbon, the only liquor born and bred in the United States, specifically Kentucky. Bourbon has seen a large increase in popularity in the last ten years with bourbon sales reaching $5.1 billion in 2023. Even Pope Francis is a fan of bourbon with a bottle of bourbon from Willett Distillery signed by the Pope to be auctioned off on December 7th at Sotheby’s.
The increase in bourbon’s popularity is spurred on by the wide range of people, including women and younger people, in particular turning to bourbon as a spirit of choice. Along with the popularity of bourbon in general has been the demand for high end bourbons such as Pappy van Winkle. Bottles of Pappy Van Winkle go for as much as $5,000 on the secondary market.
Of course, scammers are always ready to meet the consumer demand for anything and so it is no surprise that scammers are selling bottles of counterfeit bourbon of popular brands such as Pappy van Winkle for attractive prices. The scammers often purchase empty bottles of expensive bourbons and fill them with cheap liquor which they sell, often online, to unwary customers. The scammers use social media such as Facebook and Instagram to market their phony products as well as a variety of online marketplaces and fake retail websites. While eBay does not allow the sale of bottles of alcoholic beverages on its site, it does allow the sale of empty alcoholic beverage bottles such as those of Pappy Van Winkle as collectibles.
Scammers also sell their counterfeit bourbon to legitimate liquor stores. In 2023 the television show “Inside Edition” did an investigative reporting story in which they purchased a bottle of Col. E. H. Taylor Four Grain Bourbon for a little under $1,000 dollars from America’s oldest wine shop Acker Wines in New York City and then took it to Buffalo Trace, which is the Kentucky distillery that make Col. E.H. Taylor as well as a number of other high end bourbons and had it tested by Buffalo Trace’s chemists. The verdict – a fraud. The bottle was legitimate, but the bourbon contained in it was just cheap bourbon. The counterfeit bourbon had been sold to Acker as a part of a private collection. .
As with anything you find for sale online, if the price seems too good to be true, it most often is a scam and you should be skeptical.
RED FLAG
A red flag indicating that an online bourbon seller is a scammer is that many of the phony websites offering to sell you upscale bourbons indicate that they ship anywhere in the United States without restrictions. Not all states allow alcoholic beverages to be shipped to their state so any website that indicates that they ship everywhere is a scam.
The Google Safe Browsing Transparency Report is a terrific free service where you can type in the URL and learn if Google’s research indicates the website is a fake although it won’t always know if a particular liquor website is phony. Here is a link to it.
On a personal note, I am a bourbon drinker and while I have tasted Pappy Van Winkle when a bottle was given to me as a gift, I prefer the taste of some terrific less expensive bourbons. Just saying.