Appropriate
It was a fantasy drink for the fantasy novelist. The incident will probably inspire him to write a novel about it. A win-win situation.
$10,000-a-dram whisky 'wasn't even a malt'
A Swiss Hotel bar has apologised to a Chinese fantasy novelist who paid $10,000 (£7,649) for a shot of rare whisky – only to discover the single malt was a fake. The Devil's Place Whisky Bar at the Waldhaus Hotel in St Moritz boasts that it has the world's largest collection of malts, with 2,500 stocked in its bar and …
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Friday 3rd November 2017 17:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Carbon dating ?
Bit old school no ?
Anything claiming to be from before 1942 will be free of the radioactive buzz that everything in the world since then (*) now has.
Which is why pre-1942 wine bottles are very valuable.
(*) = except the steel sunk at Scapa Flow, which is still being recovered for use calibrating equipment that needs as close to zero radioactivity as possible.
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Friday 3rd November 2017 18:10 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: Carbon dating ?
Which is why pre-1942 wine
It still has lead. Plenty of it in fact. The inter-war period predates the high performance low cost diesels developed during the war so nearly everything that had an engine was petrol driven.
This is on top of the lead deposited by unscrubbed output from coal burning plants and coal burning stoves in every house. In fact, the latter was probably a much bigger net contributor to early lead contamination in agricultural produce than the lead in the petrol.
I would much rather have an occasional alpha or beta particle from residual radioactivity than lead thank you. While there are DNA repair mechanisms to deal with low level breakage from radioactivity, there is nothing to remove lead once it gets into your system.
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Monday 6th November 2017 11:39 GMT Dr Dan Holdsworth
Re: Carbon dating ?
Actually there are mechanisms for coping with toxic heavy metals in pretty much all organisms. In humans, metallothionine proteins are one of the main methods; these simply grab onto heavy metal ions and sequester them. Generally, a person's bones contain most of their sequestered lead, mercury, radium and so on, meaning that crematoria chimneys need fairly effective scrubbers to prevent the more volatile heavy metals like mercury from being re-emitted.
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Friday 3rd November 2017 18:16 GMT Lysenko
Re: Carbon dating ?
Steel picks up Cobalt-60 because of the huge amount of air circulating in a blast furnace. Bones pick up Strontium-90 because it is chemically compatible with Calcium and gets biologically concentrated, but Whisky?
There's no "concentration" step in play, it's just background to vegetable matter to product. Even if you did detect a post-war isotope it wouldn't be distinguishable from environmental background level.
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Friday 3rd November 2017 19:41 GMT Joe Werner
Re: Carbon dating ?
There are a few cosmogenic radionuclides. 14C comes to my mind, or 10Be. Those are present all around, and have been produced continuously without any human influence.
What could maybe be detected is 137Cs (not sure about the isotope, too lazy to check, sorry). Detecting this means it is definitely past bomb. At least that isotope is found in plant material, not sure if you find it in distilled products... it is what I would look for first: get the spectrum of the decay activity of the bottle. Non-invasive, doesn't use up any of the produce. But 14C dating is nice as well ;)
Oh, and I believe a human has an activity of 8 kBq... ;p
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Saturday 4th November 2017 17:34 GMT Daedalus
Re: Carbon dating ?
Wow. I thought techies knew a little science, but no.
OK, Carbon-14 is produced continuously by cosmic rays hitting nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. It mixes quickly with the rest of the carbon and gets absorbed into plants. Its half-life is over 5000 years. Once the plant dies, the carbon in the plant matter no longer exchanges with atmospheric carbon so the natural decay process starts reducing the C-14/C-12 ratio. You can measure the ratio by various means. The whole system is calibrated against samples of wood etc. of known age, and yes, nuclear weapon testing did have an effect, but it is allowed for.
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Monday 6th November 2017 14:27 GMT MT Field
Re: Carbon dating ?
That's approx what I remember. But given the half-life is 5k years it would be pretty inaccurate for measuring in the ~100 year scale. Very useful for dating early humans and their artifacts.
By the way, I don't believe whisky of any sort improves once it's been bottled, whether that was by a scots artisan or a fraudster. It's cask time that makes it special.
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Tuesday 7th November 2017 18:11 GMT Daedalus
Re: Carbon dating ?
That's approx what I remember. But given the half-life is 5k years it would be pretty inaccurate for measuring in the ~100 year scale. Very useful for dating early humans and their artifacts.
That was my first thought. Something along the lines of : they figured it couldn't be 1878 because of the lack of decay. However it turns out that with extremely accurate mass spectrometry that is available nowadays, you can date even recent objects to a year or two of accuracy. Basically they can count atoms now, instead of measuring the level of C-14 radioactivity.
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Friday 3rd November 2017 18:10 GMT DCFusor
Old lead better
Old lead from shipwrecks is better than old steel (and older yet) because, being lead, it also has some shielding properties. It's highly valued for use in Gamma Spectrometer "castles" to keep out the ambient radiation to the extent possible. Also ancient lead flashing on some old buildings...now sometimes a theft item.
Yes, I work with radiation.
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Sunday 5th November 2017 13:11 GMT jason 7
Re: Old lead better
Yeah there was a documentary on a few years ago where salvage folks were hunting for a WW2 cargo wreck that apparently had loads of silver on board.
They saw a load of bars and pulled them up to find out they were lead. They said at the time they were still worth pulling up for the reason you stated. So they did. Then luckily they found the silver too.
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Monday 6th November 2017 15:55 GMT Steve the Cynic
Re: Old lead better
"Also ancient lead flashing on some old buildings...now sometimes a theft item"
They say that back in the 70s, the folks responsible for maintenance of York Minster paid for a complete rework of the flashing by having the mediaeval lead flashing processed to separate the silver from it. The amount of silver recovered from the lead was more than enough to pay for the whole job.
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Friday 3rd November 2017 19:13 GMT lglethal
Give Credit where its due
The Swiss Hotel were contacted by some Whiskey experts to suggest that the bottle didnt look right for a Macallan 1878. The Hotel under their own steam (and at their own cost), sent off samples to be tested, and once the samples came back, they flew out and personally apologised and returned the blokes cash.
You have to applaud the Hotel for there honesty!
If that had happened in the US, the hotel would have denied everything, probably tried to get a gagging order against the experts who told them about the false looking bottle, denied everything and would have fought any attempt to have the liquid tested. Then if it eventually did end up getting proven they would sue the testers for loss of income, issue some statement about "buyer beware" and held on to the money for as long as possible (i.e. until they got sued by the customer).
But nope in this case, adults were involved, an honest mistake was repaid and everyone walks away happy. It's not a whiskey but this --> is for the hotel owners!
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Friday 3rd November 2017 20:05 GMT Franco
Re: Give Credit where its due
To be honest it's a very sensible move by the hotel, as they will no doubt have a very large clientele of whisky connoisseurs willing to pay high prices for their rare whiskies.
BTW and I know I'm being pedantic but the spelling of whisky is important. Scotch is ALWAYS whisky and never whiskey which is used for spirits distilled in Ireland and the United States.
http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/swa/chap1.html
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Friday 3rd November 2017 21:20 GMT Pen-y-gors
Re: Give Credit where its due
but the spelling of whisky is important
I would normally agree with you, and in current usage we'd be right. BUT 'thasn't always been so. Until at least the early C20 they seem to have been interchangeable:
"ASK FOR HAIG'S Glenleven Old Scotch Whiskey. - Pure and Wholesome-Over Seven years old" (Rhyl Record, 1895)
"DUNVILLES WHISKY Obtained Gold Medal, The Highest Award for Irish Whisky. At Paris International Exhibition ROYAL DISTILLERIES. BELFAST" Llandudno Advertiser 1901
"PETER DAWSON'S Scotch Whiskey, 3s. 6d. a bottle, absolutely the finest whiskey in the world. Sole agent, Percy C. Vollam. " Llandudno Advertiser 1906
"BRECON. WORKHOUSE WHISKEY WEAK. At the guardians yesterday were recommended by the medical officer (Dr. Parham) to obtain bettol whiskey for patients. It transpired that only 3s 3d per quart was paid for the whiskey, and thi Mayor (Mr Aneurin George) remarked that whiskey at that price was not worth drinking. It was decided that the medical officer deal witII the matter. S Wales Daily News 1897"
More entertaining boozing history at www.pint-of-history.wales or twitter @peintohanes - history of pubs in Ceredigion!
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Friday 3rd November 2017 21:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Give Credit where its due
I agree it's noble of the hotel to be completely honest and not get any publicity.
I'm sure a lot of people will view this hotel as a potential destination that has nothing to do with this widely publicised story.
In fact I would go so far as to question why they got it tested in the first place.
Moi cynical? Never.
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Monday 6th November 2017 19:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Big John
I feel fine about myself. I'm not smugly bigoted and don't feel justified in insulting whole nations full of people I have never met. Unlike you UK types.
Try a small experiment. Look for posts here where Brits insult Americans and the nasty names used, you'll find plenty. Then look for Americans making blanket statements about everyone in Britain and list the pejorative terms used. Good luck with that, there won't be a fraction of the smug derision you Britons spew.
Nah, we don't worry much what you think of us. It's mostly incorrect anyway.
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Friday 3rd November 2017 22:13 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: Give Credit where its due
But nope in this case, adults were involved,
No, in this case, PR consultants were involved. They got a gigantic piece of positive PR out of this. PR to which you and me are continuing to contribute.
Think of all the PR which would have been lost as a result of a gag and god forbid negative PR generated.
Think of all the other bottles with 10K stickers on them waiting for the next sucker with a fat wallet.
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Saturday 4th November 2017 00:45 GMT Franco
This may be apocryphal, but I was told a story by a brand ambassador for one of the Islay distilleries when I was last over there that she had seen (on more than one occasion) service refused in Scandinavian whisky bars if anyone asked for anything other than water or ice. I think it was somewhere in Stockholm she told me about, and the customer demanded to see the manager who backed the barman and told the customer if he was trying to buy expensive malts and mix them he was doing it purely to show off.
Adding ice to a single malt can be a contentious enough subject, adding a mixer would have the purists up in arms. If that's how you like it then fine, but it's pretty pointless buying an expensive whisky then.
https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/article/ever-put-ice-single-malt-scotch/
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Sunday 5th November 2017 23:31 GMT I ain't Spartacus
I was going to France, and asked a friend if he wanted anything. Decent brandy, he says. Spend about £30. Then, that would get you a 15 year old single malt, and with lack of French sin taxes and a favourable exchange rate, he got some rather nice brandy.
So he tells me about how lovely it is, and how he keeps cheap stuff around, for friends who don't appreciate the good stuff, but still insist on drinking his anyway. Not something I'd do, though I keep cheap blended whisky / bourbon around for mixing and cooking.
So having told me all this, he buggers off to the kitchen, and instead of coming back with a balloon of the good stuff, he's clutching a highball with ice and coke!
Shameful! I'm still not sure if he was just being a snob, or had convinced himself that his discerning palate could taste much of anything over the coke.
To be fair, I can tell decent gin from cheap crap in a G&T. But we did a "tasting" at a friend's leaving do and went through a nice bar's gin selection. Yummy! From Gordon's up to the £40 a bottle boutique stuff, and the only one I could taste any real difference with was Gin Mare. £35 from Waitrose, and very nice indeed. Not sure I'd pay that for it as a mixer though. For martinis I might.
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Monday 6th November 2017 14:43 GMT KroSha
@Spartacus
With gin, you'll always get a much wider range of flavours than with Scotch, as the flavours are what it's all about. Gin is easy to differentiate, which is why there are a plethora to choose from at the moment, all with their own distinctive taste.
Gin Mare is one of my favourites as well; try Bulldog or Martin's Icelandic gin. They're nice. But you're right, too nice to be drowned in tonic.
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Monday 6th November 2017 15:17 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: @Spartacus
KroSha,
I'm not sure how wide the difference in gins really is. They're all pretty perfum-y. The Botanist, that my brother gave me for chrimbo, was much nicer than Gordon's in a martini, very little different in a G&T and still not very nice neat.
I've only had one gin that stood out from the crowd (other than the fruit flavoured stuff, yum Edinburgh Raspberry). That was the Cotswold Brewery Sipping Gin. Which was genuinely delicious neat.
I admit that I'm not a huge gin fan, and similarly I suspect you're not a huge whisky fan. There's a massive difference between a 10 year old Jura (which is about as bland a malt as I've tried) and say Caol Ila (which is heading towards TCP).
In both the cases of gin and whisky, the alcohol and flavour are so heavy, that you probably have to educate your palate quite a lot, before you can make many distinctions. Gin isn't really my bag, though since I've started making martinis, it's more becoming so. But I've also been venturing into rum of late - my current favourite being Rumbullion.
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Monday 6th November 2017 15:17 GMT Loyal Commenter
To be fair, I can tell decent gin from cheap crap in a G&T. But we did a "tasting" at a friend's leaving do and went through a nice bar's gin selection. Yummy! From Gordon's up to the £40 a bottle boutique stuff, and the only one I could taste any real difference with was Gin Mare. £35 from Waitrose, and very nice indeed. Not sure I'd pay that for it as a mixer though. For martinis I might.
If you are tasting gin, you really should do it neat. Take a small amount and swill it around your mouth until it stops burning, then swallow that and take a swig to taste it. Gin Mare is one of the few that is nice neat at room temperature, as the olive and Mediterranean herbs soften it a little. If you are looking for a G&T, you may as well go for something cheap and full of juniper, or something with a strong flavour that isn't damaged by the tonic, like a rhubarb gin.
...and if you like Gin Mare, it's cheaper closer to the source, around €30 a litre in Barcelona.
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Monday 6th November 2017 10:02 GMT Hans 1
You do not mix The Macallan, I hope .. we are not talking lousy bourbon or blend, here ... now, I don't like Cola, so I even drink lousy blend straight, I don't have a sweet tooth, so I avoid Bourbon ... I do love a Single Malt and I can tell the difference, even between some Single Malts (especially the smokey ones) ... no expert, though ...
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Friday 3rd November 2017 21:38 GMT Pen-y-gors
Even the experts sound iffy
Whisky/Whiskey is matured in casks. Once it is bottled it stops developing flavour and character. So by saying 'the bottle is wrong' for an 1878 MacAllen is strange. It could have been bottled anytime in the last century or more. Although it's possible there was only one known cask that was bottled in e.g.1980 and the bottle is wrong for that bottling.
It's worth paying for the good stuff. The most expensive whisky I ever bought was a bottle of 1956 Glen Grant that cost £80 in 1996. I drank the last measure in 2006. Very nice too. The same stuff, bottled in 2008 is now selling for about £1500!
£80 seemed quite a lot then, but if you reckon that at the time Grouse, Haig etc was £40 a bottle if you bought it in a pub!
So today? Cheap blends are £2.50-£3 a shot in a pub, so at least £70 a bottle. I'd say going up to £150 or £200 a bottle for a special occasion is well worth it. Or even buy two bottles and keep one for 20 years!
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Saturday 4th November 2017 14:31 GMT lglethal
Re: Even the experts sound iffy
I think you might have misunderstood. The Whisky in this case was supposedly bottled in 1878.
So presumably the experts know what type of bottles Macallan used to bottle there Whisky in 1878, and what type of labels they used. Since this bottle doesnt match the bottles Macallan used in 1878 and the label was different it raised suspicions. Justifiably so.
Nothing to do with when the cask was laid in this case...
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Monday 6th November 2017 12:36 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Even the experts sound iffy
It's like a tiny bit of time travel.
It's also why whisky bottles that get found in shipwrecks are so expensive (unless the cork has failed - in which case it's worthless).
There's even a good aftermarket for empty rare whisky bottles. Sadly, it's mostly so that scammers can refill them with cheap spirit and then reseal them to sell to people who don't know better - which is why mine go to the recycling..
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Monday 6th November 2017 08:08 GMT wallaby
Re: Even the experts sound iffy
I once worked part time in a hotel bar, a guy asked me for a bottle of JD one night (Why the hell that bilge water when there are so many good malts on the market) - I told him I could only sell it by the measure so that would make his bottle £117-50 he said fine - put it on his credit card.
I pointed out that a 5 min journey up the road would take him to a wine shop where he could buy 3 bottles, pay for the taxi, and still have change out of the £117.50 but he said no, put it on the card.
No accounting for stupidity
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Monday 6th November 2017 10:24 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Even the experts sound iffy
wallaby,
JD is quite nice with coke occasionally. I don't like either of them on their own, but they seem to work quite well together. I've picked up a few cheaper bourbons to have around as mixers with coke, and they aren't as nice that way - while also not being drinkable straight. I should probably try some Makers Mark or Woodford Reserve to see if they're better.
I did the Jameson's distillery tour a few years back. And they had a tasting at the end, to show how good Jameson's is. Their two comparators were JD and Johnny Walker - so it's not like they set the bar very high. We then tried some of the older, more expensive, stuff and to be honest you could barely tell it from their bog-standard. Which is perfectly drinkable, though nothing special. Sainsbury's are selling a Glen Moray for £18 - which is about the same price - but far nicer.
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Monday 6th November 2017 11:48 GMT Dr Dan Holdsworth
Re: Even the experts sound iffy
This sort of thing goes on everywhere, but racecourses seem to be a magnet for it.
Years ago, my father and I were working on York racecourse as bookies, on the cheap side where the big hospitality tents are. York as a course has peculiar betting patterns; the punters bet like mad, flat out for about twenty minutes before each race, then about five minutes before the off everything goes quiet, and you'd better have a balanced book by then or you're stuck standing something.
Anyway, we were standing, hoping to get a few quid more on a mid-ranker horse returned at 8-1 with us, 10-1 elsewhere. No great matter; punters rarely compare odds. Up comes some chap with a tenner, rather more than we wanted so we told him he'd get better odds else where, even pointed out the better odds. Nope, wanted 80 for 10 with us, so we took it and made a backbet with next door of 80 for 8.
Two quid profit and I still don't know why the guy was so insistent on betting with us, and not someone else. The horse lost anyway.
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Thursday 9th November 2017 18:20 GMT Orv
Re: Even the experts sound iffy
I pointed out that a 5 min journey up the road would take him to a wine shop where he could buy 3 bottles, pay for the taxi, and still have change out of the £117.50 but he said no, put it on the card.
My guess is that was a company expense card. ;)
There also *are* people in the world for whom half an hour of time is probably worth more than that figure.
I remember a story way back, when LeVar Burton was on Star Trek. He took a road trip in his BMW, and it broke down and got towed to a dealership. It was under warranty, and he could have waited for it to be fixed. But he was in a hurry, so he just bought another BMW. For most of us that would be pretty damn stupid, but at his level of wealth (and time commitment), saving a day of his vacation was probably worth the trade-in loss on a late-model Beemer.
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Monday 6th November 2017 10:25 GMT GruntyMcPugh
Re: Even the experts sound iffy
"It's worth paying for the good stuff."
.. but it is very subjective,.... a couple of years ago I did the tourist trip around the Glengoyne Distillery, and had a sample of their 12yo and 20yo, the 20yo I personally found too phenolic, so exited through the gift shop with a bottle of their 12yo as that was far more to my taste (and pocket :-) )
Glengoyne is a lovely distillery to visit, btw, pretty much what you imagine when you think of a distillery, three lovely copper swan necked stills, set in quaint buildings, certainly captures the romance.
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Monday 6th November 2017 19:44 GMT DJSpuddyLizard
Re: Even the experts sound iffy
It's worth paying for the good stuff. The most expensive whisky I ever bought was a bottle of 1956 Glen Grant that cost £80 in 1996. I drank the last measure in 2006. Very nice too. The same stuff, bottled in 2008 is now selling for about £1500!
Yes, but like you say, " Once it is bottled it stops developing flavour and character."
So the '56 Glen Grant you bought in 1996 is not "the same stuff" as the '56 Glen Grant bottled in 2008. Keeping a bottle of whisky longer means that it's older, not that it's matured more, and may be less valuable than the same year's whiskey bottled in a later year, as you just demonstrated.
In the hotel's case, the tipple was expensive because it was thought to have been very old and rare.
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Saturday 4th November 2017 10:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why did they get it tested?
and before some smart arse comments about some whiskey aficionado seeing the bottle on the internet I would then ask why that person hasn't visited this Guinness book of world records whiskey establishment and viewed the bottle before it was posted on the internet.
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Saturday 4th November 2017 11:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Seems an odd thing to mention...
"Mr Zhang has reportedly earned $100m from his work, grossing $16.8m in 2015. You can see why it was worth a trip to China to say sorry."
Completely! I mean if one of us plebs had bought a shot of the stuff, there would have been several million reasons less to say I'm sorry, right?
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Saturday 4th November 2017 12:13 GMT Tom 7
Never ever do that.
A single dram of a whisky you dont know is like a single line of a poem - probably unenlightening. Some times you will be delighted by the tastes but sometimes it takes a few more to 'understand' the complexities of the drink,
I'd imagine no-ones favourite album made sense the first time they heard it.
Having said that - shame the pretentious twat got his money back - he could have learned a useful life lesson.
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Saturday 4th November 2017 21:56 GMT Joe Werner
Re: Never ever do that.
"A single dram of a whisky you dont know is like a single line of a poem - probably unenlightening."
Hm. Nice analogy, but no cylindrical smoking thing, I'd say. I'm not a real wine or whisky expert, but I know that I can spot many characteristics (well, those relevant to me) of a drink from a single serving. You need to have a clear mind and palate for that... best if you don't know the price before you try it (!)
Fun episode on our honeymoon: hiking in Switzerland, stayed someplace, no proper dinner clothing, but we were well treated - they are used to that type of customers, I guess. Especially after I started discussing high quality grappa with the maitre (yes, those are nice, I have these at home and know those very well, yes, that one is actually one of our favorite distilleries - you have anything really special/ quaint?) What we got was good, interesting, but nothing I'd get a bottle of, still a nice experience.
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Monday 6th November 2017 09:14 GMT Kevin Pollock
Apparently whisky/whiskey does "age" in the bottle
Until a few years ago I was also under the impression that, once bottled, high alcohol spirits do not change. But I think the reality is that they do *develop*....whether you would classify that as "aging" is a different thing. With all of those complex chemicals in the bottle it's inevitable that something's going to happen.
I think this review by Ralfy on YouTube covers the topic, but as I'm on a train at the moment I haven't had a chance to listen to it to make sure it's the right one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIpaKQ8pueg
This is only one opnion, of course. And I'm not sure how you would establish any kind of sensible control. Even if Ralfy had tasted the same bottle many years ago would the difference in flavour be as a result of the development, or because his own taste buds have changed over the years, or even because his memory of that original tasting might be uncertain. If this is the example I'm thinking of it's a bottle that was sent to him by a channel subscriber, so he didn't even taste the original sample.
Perhaps if you were to cryogenically freeze some whisky to try to prevent chemical change it might offer a good control against a "room temperature" sample. I'm sure there's a PhD topic in there somewhere - and all you have to do is include the term "Global Warming" in the funding request and you're sure to get approval.
(Note, before your finger hits the down vote button I would like to point out that I am not an AGW or Climate Change denier, but it's common knowledge that research funding priorities tend to go with fashions).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
