Chuck Bao
5/4/2010, 07:18 PM
I had been puking my guts out for two days. No, I didn’t drink THAT much! Tonight, I am finally getting back up to drinking again and when I opened the whiskey bottle, the chemical smell was over-powering, something like formaldehyde. The taste was awful and I still have that chemical taste in my mouth after taking just a few sips with lots of ice and diet coke.
Please tell me that I am just imagining it.
So, I pour out the glass because it is so offensive. I go to the local 7-Eleven to buy another bottle of Johnnie Walker. I decide to pour a little from the old bottle and little from the new bottle into two separate glasses. I even switched them around a few times so I wouldn’t know which came from which bottle. Yeah, I could tell the difference immediately. One smelled just like formaldehyde and the other like Johnnie Walker should smell and taste like. So, I am drinking again, but only from the new bottle.
This is exactly why I drink only Johnnie Walker because, if I am going to abuse alcohol, it probably should be some brand that is not going to poison me or pickle my insides.
I understand that there is a big problem in Thailand in counterfeiting the premium imported brands. You can actually sell the empty whiskey bottles for above the value of the glass and you can imagine that the bars are not above selling their empties to the counterfeiters. I would smash my empty bottles if that were an easy thing to do. Apparently, counterfeiters can manufacture the packaging exactly. They can easily produce the holograms designed to stop counterfeiters. They can produce identical sealed caps and get the tax stamp plastered over it. Maybe the counterfeiters don’t even care how bad the product is. If I were into conspiracy theories, I would wonder if local whiskey bottlers wouldn’t be so opposed to this sabotage of their dominant and famous brand competitors.
A quick Google search brought up this about the effectiveness of holograms and whiskey counterfeiters.
http://www.3d-lab.de/25c3/counterfeiting.htm
It is commonly believed that holograms cannot be counterfeited. As a matter of fact, it is rather easy to counterfeit the holograms that are commonly used today in security applications, and holograms have been counterfeited more than once.
There are several straightforward, simple, and inexpensive ways to counterfeit the kinds of holograms currently used in security documents and credit cards. This is not news to the holographic industry, but it may be a revelation to some of the users and potential users of security holograms.
If a hologram is the key feature used to judge the validity of an identification card or a product, then the counterfeiter's incentive is directly related to the profits he can make by counterfeiting the hologram. Two examples will suffice to show that the financial rewards to a hologram counterfeiter can be enormous: on the level of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Johnny Walker Scotch Whiskey has recently carried a holographic label as a counterfeit deterrent. Roughly 50 million bottles are sold in a year. A bottle of this whiskey costs $16, and the cost of producing a bottle of counterfeit whiskey is less than $2. Assuming volume discounts and markups for middlemen, a counterfeiter stands to make $20 million if he can produce a passable holographic Johnny Walker label.
I don’t even know what to do.
I would like to send the bottle to Johnnie Walker and let them test it and hopefully do something to stop this dangerous practice.
I don’t know if my loyalty to buying only the premium foreign whiskey brands is now misguided. After all, when I am drinking and seriously drinking, I don’t even notice that horrible chemical taste, or I didn’t this last bout of drinking.
Have any of you heard of counterfeited whiskey in the US?
Please tell me that I am just imagining it.
So, I pour out the glass because it is so offensive. I go to the local 7-Eleven to buy another bottle of Johnnie Walker. I decide to pour a little from the old bottle and little from the new bottle into two separate glasses. I even switched them around a few times so I wouldn’t know which came from which bottle. Yeah, I could tell the difference immediately. One smelled just like formaldehyde and the other like Johnnie Walker should smell and taste like. So, I am drinking again, but only from the new bottle.
This is exactly why I drink only Johnnie Walker because, if I am going to abuse alcohol, it probably should be some brand that is not going to poison me or pickle my insides.
I understand that there is a big problem in Thailand in counterfeiting the premium imported brands. You can actually sell the empty whiskey bottles for above the value of the glass and you can imagine that the bars are not above selling their empties to the counterfeiters. I would smash my empty bottles if that were an easy thing to do. Apparently, counterfeiters can manufacture the packaging exactly. They can easily produce the holograms designed to stop counterfeiters. They can produce identical sealed caps and get the tax stamp plastered over it. Maybe the counterfeiters don’t even care how bad the product is. If I were into conspiracy theories, I would wonder if local whiskey bottlers wouldn’t be so opposed to this sabotage of their dominant and famous brand competitors.
A quick Google search brought up this about the effectiveness of holograms and whiskey counterfeiters.
http://www.3d-lab.de/25c3/counterfeiting.htm
It is commonly believed that holograms cannot be counterfeited. As a matter of fact, it is rather easy to counterfeit the holograms that are commonly used today in security applications, and holograms have been counterfeited more than once.
There are several straightforward, simple, and inexpensive ways to counterfeit the kinds of holograms currently used in security documents and credit cards. This is not news to the holographic industry, but it may be a revelation to some of the users and potential users of security holograms.
If a hologram is the key feature used to judge the validity of an identification card or a product, then the counterfeiter's incentive is directly related to the profits he can make by counterfeiting the hologram. Two examples will suffice to show that the financial rewards to a hologram counterfeiter can be enormous: on the level of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Johnny Walker Scotch Whiskey has recently carried a holographic label as a counterfeit deterrent. Roughly 50 million bottles are sold in a year. A bottle of this whiskey costs $16, and the cost of producing a bottle of counterfeit whiskey is less than $2. Assuming volume discounts and markups for middlemen, a counterfeiter stands to make $20 million if he can produce a passable holographic Johnny Walker label.
I don’t even know what to do.
I would like to send the bottle to Johnnie Walker and let them test it and hopefully do something to stop this dangerous practice.
I don’t know if my loyalty to buying only the premium foreign whiskey brands is now misguided. After all, when I am drinking and seriously drinking, I don’t even notice that horrible chemical taste, or I didn’t this last bout of drinking.
Have any of you heard of counterfeited whiskey in the US?