Tourist’s €8,500 wee dram proves a bit of a sham...
‘Rare’ malt whisky actually made in 1970s
FOR a whisky fan, it appeared to be more than just a precious wee dram – it was a holy grail.
Sitting on the bar of an exclusive Swiss hotel, the bottle purported to be a single malt The Macallan dating back to 1878.
The temptation to try it proved too much for Chinese tourist Zhang Wei.
He paid £7,600 (€8,500) for a taste of what he believed to be one of the world’s rarest Scotches. The bottle, which had sat unopened in the bar for 25 years, was uncorked – and the most expensive measure ever was poured.
Mr Zhang, 36, who has made a fortune writing martial arts fantasy novels, lovingly sipped the amber fluid. ‘The alcohol was 139 years old – same age as my grandma’s grandma... it had a good taste,’ he said later. ‘It’s not just the taste, but also history.’
But his delight has been shattered after experts spotted newspaper articles about the whisky. They investigated and discovered the bottle was a fake. Rather than being bottled in 1878, tests showed the whisky dated only to the early 1970s. And instead of being a prized single malt, it was a blend of malt and grain whiskies.
Sandro Bernasconi, manager of the Waldhaus Am See hotel in St Moritz, flew to China to break the bad news – and give Mr Zhang a refund. Mr Zhang was on holiday when he visited the hotel’s whisky bar in July and posted a tribute on social media site Weibo.
But when experts saw discrepancies between the bottle’s cork and label, the hotel had a sample analysed.
Carbon dating tests by Oxford University researchers showed the spirit was almost certainly created between 1970 and 1972. Further tests indicated it was 60% malt and 40% grain. Had the bottle been genuine, it would have been worth around €250,000.