jvd99 Posted April 9, 2023 Share Posted April 9, 2023 A British con artist preyed on a bunch of elderly victims by selling them casks of whisky that didn't exist, contained a different spirit than promised, or contained an unidentifiable spirit. The total fraud was over 10 million pounds and he stole a lot of elderly folks' entire life savings. It doesn't appear the scam involved bourbon, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that this kind of stuff could go on in the bourbon world too. The most interesting part of the story was toward the end when one whisky expert hypothesized that in the future, when all the casks involved in the fraud come of age, their owners will want to recoup some money and the casks will hit the market in one form or another, ether a cask re-sell or bottled, but there will be no way to identify what distillery created the spirit. An interesting conundrum. I actually think a business could be made out of these mystery casks by labelling them just that, a mystery, and pricing it according to how it tastes. My personal opinion on all this is I'm not surprised one bit. Brown liquor is such a hot investment, it breeds unsavory behavior at every level of distribution chain (at least here in the USA) and outright fraud on the secondary market. If I'm going after a unicorn bottle, I don't trust anything I don't buy from a LS I know. Here's the article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11942319/How-British-artist-scammed-world-thinking-millionaire-whisky-investor.html 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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