I love Scotch and Bourbon. I would never pay that much for a bottle of booze. I had $800 Scotch once and it wasn't as good as a $100 or even $80 bottle.
Eggsfuckingzactley. Is this the same bottle of whiskey that Jesus tasted at the Last Supper and said, "Fuck me, that's really good whiskey?" Because if not, it's not worth $1k/fifth. No whiskey is worth $1k/fifth. Very few whiskeys are worth $60/fifth. Every dollar above $50/fifth IMHO requires a geometric improvement in excellence in flavor. If it doesn't taste good to everybody above $50/fifth (including people who hate brown drink), it's garbage.
In regards to experience at counterfeit whiskey, this happened a long time ago. I went with some friends to a disco. Just pay a cover charge and you're in. It included an open bar. (I know, that screams the cheapest alcohol available.) The proof though was when you went to the bar and there was all this name brand whiskeys, but they were all the same color liquids. ;) Had a great time, didn't matter, but was amusing.
The NFC tag theoretically can't detect tampering. Even if the band is cut, as long as the traces are repaired before it's scanned again, it'll show as unopened. The real fun will be what happens to the tag data and the app when a previously opened bottle gets read as sealed.
I was just wondering if the open status is something that's being registered or if the app is just getting an opened status from the tag every time and not saving it.
I would guess that as soon as Buffalo Trace's system gets an "opened" scan for any serial number it will read opened in their system from that point forward although I have definitely seen bigger programming oversights than that before.
It would straight away be detected as counterfeit, because apparently the real bottles have a break detection circuit, which i don't think is standard across most nfc chips. Even if you could clone the chip, Buffalo trace would know from all the scans of the single valid serial and push a counterfeit warning back to the phone, allowing the customer to follow up with wherever they bought it from. pretty cool stuff. So the only real way for the counterfeiting to continue, is for people to be unaware theres supposed to be a chip and to look for it, or for hackers to compromise the serial database and make them with cloned serials that way until theres enough scans in multiple locations and its picked up. Pretty cool tech, and just enough to probably make the counterfeiters target easier bottles.
It says that its been opened. If it hasn't been opened, it's most likely - but not guaranteed - to be fake. It doesn't have to generate an error. If it is possible to clone labels then it is possible labels could be copied by an employee who has access to a shipment or a store that has bottles in a display case close enough to get a signal. So if you could copy them before any bottle was sold, you might be able to sell quite a few fakes before the buyers found out what was up.
@@darrell857 Well the question is, is there a server logging the tag requests? If there isn't, then a cloned copy of an unopened tag may still report it as unopened when scanned if that data bit is sourced from the tag itself. Hopefully they are able to recognize when an already opened bottle scans itself as "unopened" and report that to the user. It would also be sensible (from a data-seeking perspective, not a privacy perspective) to record location of scan and other meta data that could help track the users history on the server. Doing a packet capture of the app requests would be interesting if it isn't encrypted.
Most ppl that pay that much don't open them. There are a lot of bourbon FB groups and ppl just post pics of all these collections and nothing is opened. I guess they probably battle them like Pokémon against their friends bottles. I think some of them think they are a good investment.
To be fair, if you copy one tag and put it on a bunch of bottles, as soon as one person opens one, all of them will show opened since they all share the same serial number.
I'm currently reading a fascinating book, Bourbon Empire by Reid Mitenbuler that explores the history and mythology of American whiskey and bourbon starting in the late 1700's with the Whiskey Rebellion. Each generation as far back as the 1800's has had to combat conterfeiting with innovations like stamping barrels with complex logos to using same sized, sealed, glass bottles (glass bottles! gee). This is just another chapter in that ongoing war. With that kind of history I can absolutely believe that 30% figure of high end whiskey being fake.
You should read about Rudy Kurniawan, who counterfeited rare wine on a massive scale in the 2000s and 2010s. Not whiskey, obvs, but an alcoholic beverage in a bottle, so lots of commonalities.
I was actually just thinking about Rudy. One of the most interesting things Bout him was that a lot of his fakes were pretty far from perfect, but people either didn't know the bottle that they were buying well enough, or just trusted him solely on reputation. The doc on him is outstanding (and I don't normally like documentaries) ~Sonny
@ What? Absolutely. He was auctioning off vintages for tens if thousands of dollars with forged labels. A representative of the winery came to the auction to say that that wine, in that vintage, had not been produced. That was the beginning of the end , I think he may have been criminally charged. You should watch the documentary, it was very interesting, and well produced.
@@jeffreylehman1159 Interesting. The comment here reminded me of a story I heard and maybe it's just that. A guy design and printed out his own $200 dollar bill. He used it at a Dairy Queen and the cashier accepted it and gave him change for it. The Store manager called it in but the Secret Service let the man go because the US does not have a $200 dollar bill.
You can buy the most expensive booze you want and there's always a non-zero chance you don't like it and just wasted your money. It's entirely too subjective and price is not a substitute for determining if it's qualities will align with your desires. Ask me how I know, btdt.
@d-rot yup my personal thing is I buy booze to drink. If it's 300 bucks I'm. Sharing it at least and enjoying the memories made. My dad was big into buying bottles and just saving them and saying when the times right. Eventually got him out of that and we've enjoyed summer nights on the porch just chatting sipping on a good whiskey with my brother and BIL.
Collecting anything in the mass production era is always dumb af. Some factory in China was 100% running third shifts unbeknownst to the ownership, or set up an entire other factory kicking out the exact same designs. And any time the legal owners could decide to make another run and demolish your "collectible's" value.
The app isn’t buggy, you’re pointing your phone wrong. The NFC part of the phone isn’t the back, it’s the top edge. If you invert your phone and touch straight down on the top of the cork, you would get a clean read every time.
Don’t pay over retail price EVER. Every time I’ve bought something for secondary price, I’ve ended up finding it for retail within the next couple months
@@ZahraIsMyDogmy local abc store had 3 left in stock. I bought a bottle and a bottle of Buffalo trace. I never go in to find specific stuff but if it catches my eye I grab it.
Bootlegging only occurs because people are stupid enough to pay $1,000 for a bottle of whiskey, jesus. How could it possibly be worth that much money. Did they only make one bottle.
How does anything get a high price in a capitalist system? If supply is low but demand is high, the price is also high. In this case we are talking about limited edition productions and productions by small scale businesses which can only produce a limited number of bottles each year. The original msrp on these George T. Stagg 2023 bottles was $125 a bottle. People find out how good it tastes, bottles get sold and drunk, supplies dwindle and the less bottles are available, the higher the price goes up until something better comes along. Yes, rich folk are stup1d when it comes to what they value and think is worth laying down such prices for.
@@ciklop4206 its literally how capitalism works buddy. Not that I would ever spend that kind of money on whiskey but that is the basics of the capilatist system.
@@rick5078 yeee it's not just whisky n capitlism tho is it... The companies spend a lot of time doing research, perfecting their techniques and technologies, employing ppl, etc. Op is being hella ignorant and narrow minded calling ppl stupid like that yo
Simple economics. 1000 buyers for every bottle available at retail. so the price goes up until the # of buyers = the # of bottles available. The consumers set the price, not the seller(s).
Counterfeit whiskey is such a big problem in luxury dining you'd be amazed the amount that are the exact same color or taste profile but coming in a more expensive glass
Yeah, that's why it's pointless to buy pours of allocated or even cheap brand name liquor at a bar. It's so easy & so profitable to counterfeit. Customers don't expect the bottles to be unopened, so they just re-fill it with anything & sell for higher than secondary. Example: at $200 for a 1oz pour, a 750mL bottle of Pappy filled with Weller, will generate $5000 in sales. So I would estimate that 80%+ of high end liquor (not just whiskey) in bars is fake.
next step to increase anti-counterfeiting measures: Have the nfc chip be placed inside the cork itself, bound to a pressure sensor. Have the nfc contain two unique id codes, one code signifies un-opened the other signifies opened. As the cork is inserted at the bottling plant, the pressure sensor registers the increase in pressure and turns the nfc chip on and tells it to broadcast the un-opened id code. The moment the cork is removed, the pressure sensor registers a significant drop in pressure and sends a signal to the nfc to now broadcast to the opened id code instead.
Next episode definitely needs to be a blind tasting episode. 4-5 bourbons of similar proof to this. The other pours should be easily accessible bottles. And 1 should be Stagg Jr too.
Curious if the app is just checking that the chip is intact, or if it's contacting a database to see if that serial number has ever turned up as opened before, and marking it as such once it is torn.
Step one and only step... Film the opening and test the abv with a hydrometer. If not exact it's not real. It's very hard to get exact proof in a counterfeit setting. Combine that with knowledge of the mash bill and color.
How in the world could you buy GTS and not know the market value. I get control state or whatever but even in a control state they are lottery bottles. It’s great bourbon though enjoy it.
Yeah, secondary is crazy. I have several bottles of scotch I bought for for £40-60 that are in the £100-300 area. Got three bottles of Springbank 10 at the £50 msrp. Those are £150 each. It’s wild.
Got a 2024 GTS this past Saturday in a raffle to buy at store opening for $299. For the few years I have been really into Bourbon I have never been able to get a BTAC, without of course spending way more than I would ever want.
You should see if using the app makes it so the saved Tag Brian has still says if it is unopened. Doesnt protect from counterfeits where they never break the tag but would be good if they update the information on their end when it is opened if people are making fake tags
You forgot to do the last and most telling thing. Test the NFC tag to see if you can turn the "opened" bottle back into an "unopened" bottle by closing the circuit again. Solder what you cut, closing the circuit, rescan and make sure the server software saved the open state instead of relying on the most current scan of the tag.
Anyone that pays that much for whiskey should not complain about getting ripped off. The real deal at $1000.00 is being ripped off. It’s just my opinion. I enjoy the affordable whiskey that I can buy and cannot believe that I’d suddenly be taken to the promised land by a sip of thousand dollar whiskey.
I had gotten a bottle of Jack Daniels century in a too good to be true deal. And only knew it was fake because they had filled the bottle with the Sinatra you can still buy that I have as my favorite bottle.
Another cool test would be to clone the nfc, and then read both the fake (uncut) and the real cut one and see if the app still says cut for the fake one. If so, it means they actually store that information, but if the fake reads unopened after the real one reads opened, then the entire auth is probably local. or at least they dont store that data
Theres a break detection circuit according to the manufacturer. When you scan it energises the chip which does a quick check of the seals connection..So even with airplane mode on it would show as opened because one of the fields would show a 1 instead of a 0 or vice versa , But guaranteed any time that chip is scanned, its reporting the status back to the mothership. Also theres probably a interface where Buffalo peeps get a handy visualisation of how many bottles opened, where the locations are, what serials were scanned, so if they get multiple scans of the same serial in different locations they know they have a counterfeit serial and can send an alert back to the phone. This will also alert them to if their serials database has been compromised.
@Fanta.... You'd hope. But it could also try to connect to BT HQ and fall over if it can't, then refuse to scan anything, or refuse to attempt to verify anything. Depends on how much thought they put into system design before whacking up the app. Actually doing the experiment would help here.
Thanks for the video! Because of it, I went to check a 2022 GTS that I just got in NJ. So no NFC, everything looks good (labels, neck foil), but the laser code is funky. Took several pictures and sent to Buffalo Trace to get their opinion. We might be in KY after the holidays, so may stop by with the bottle for their experts to look at as well. We’ll chronicle each step of the way on our channel. Keep up the great content!
well, I may go $100 for George T. Stagg, no way would I go $101. The local Liquor story had one for $895, it was still there when I left. I hope I become rich enough to think about buy a bottle for $1000, I would have over $101 billion (US $) in investments then I would think about it.
Sadly, this sort of thing is inevitable when something becomes a collectible. The 1914 Lincoln penny minted in Denver is a highly-sought after coin. Demand outstrips supply. So some creative counterfeiters took the common 1944 Lincoln penny minted in Denver and filed a portion of the first "4" so that it strongly resembled the "1" in 1914. And sold what was a coin worth maybe fifty cents for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Anyone that collects coins, sports cards, non-sports cards, comic book and dang near anything else will be familiar with professional grading and authentication systems. For a fee, they will take your collectible and rate it for authenticity and for condition. In my opinion, professional grading has utterly ruined everything it has touched. How long before some enterprising folks start a company to authenticate whisk(e) y? Obviously, they can't open the bottles to authenticate the liquid, but they could examine the bottle and evaluate it for authenticity, giving you a certificate that your bottle of George T. Stagg from 2023 is "Guaranteed Authentic-Unaltered".
@@Medowokha-bp5lq You'll also never convince me that someone who submits hundreds of grading requests at a time does not get better grades (or the benefit of a doubt when it comes to grading) than someone who sends in only one or two at a time.
Ah being ripped off by counterfeits. So I got done years ago. Saw a poster for Jack Daniels master distiller in a barrel, supposedly aged for 80 years. Coming in at to me an eye watering 20k aud. But it's at a bottle-o (alchohol store), I had the money to spare at the time. So I place an order for it. Part of the price included having a personal message put on the barrel. Also paid extra for delivery to my house instead of just the store. It arrives, bring my fiancees family over to meet for the first time, only just proposed not long before. Crack it open, it smelt foul. Like sewer foul, looked like it too honestly. They are pissed at me. She thinks I played some sick prank to break up with her. Was not a fun night. Tried speaking to the store after. The manager that sold me it apparently doesn't exist according to their head office (I called from in store as the workers were less than helpful). Just had to eat the cost as I stupidly paid cash, mostly due to my bank ironically enough not allowing me to use my card, which would have been covered under insurance, to make that large a purchase.
You should have made another nfc tag. AFTER you cut and scanned the original tag to show it had been opened. Just to see the status of the bottle and if they are actually tracking/updating it.
I just want to mention that NFC is very limited to the position of the sensor on the phone and the field it is trying to read. I’m guessing the app is rated very low because people don’t know where it is located on their phone as it even shifts between iPhone/ Galaxy models
Not worth the price. Don't care if it was distilled by the gods themselves. 😂 Tho if a sucker will pay for a relate bottle I'll buy a couple of cases of decent cheap whiskey bury it and wait till I go to retire 😂
As an MGP evangelist, I'm glad no one would take the time to fake a Remus repeal or a Gatsby. That said one of my Grails is redemption rye 18 year (MGP sourced) and that might be worth faking ~$1,000
Anyone else notice the fill level on that bottle? Go back and look at the photo in the app after scanning and see that fill level. Seems to me it's a short fill which would lead me to think that this has been refilled.
I have a question. Let's say you duplicate the NFC and give the duplicate NFC version away to another person. They open the bottle, scan the code, and say it is Open. Since it has the same serial number, will it affect the original NFC that’s not open?
I imagine this is a bit harder to counterfeit than is presented here - I'm assuming that "opening" the bottle results in some of the traces in the NFC tag being cut, leading to a slight difference in frequency or something. I'm kinda surprised that brian didn't write it to an NFC tag and check to see if the scan revealed it as opened or still sealed. I kinda suspect that it would have read as opened, as the in-tact state would likely have the variant from a typical NFC broadcast.
Visit on.auraframes.com/3YEabh2 and use code WHISKEYTRIBE to get an exclusive deal and get $35 off on the best-selling Carver Mat frame!
Why the fuck am I hearing a horrible AI translation voice instead the original audio?
How to identify when a $1000 whiskey is a scam: There is no such thing as a whiskey worth $1000, that is a scam.
I love Scotch and Bourbon. I would never pay that much for a bottle of booze. I had $800 Scotch once and it wasn't as good as a $100 or even $80 bottle.
Eggsfuckingzactley. Is this the same bottle of whiskey that Jesus tasted at the Last Supper and said, "Fuck me, that's really good whiskey?" Because if not, it's not worth $1k/fifth. No whiskey is worth $1k/fifth. Very few whiskeys are worth $60/fifth. Every dollar above $50/fifth IMHO requires a geometric improvement in excellence in flavor. If it doesn't taste good to everybody above $50/fifth (including people who hate brown drink), it's garbage.
In regards to experience at counterfeit whiskey, this happened a long time ago. I went with some friends to a disco. Just pay a cover charge and you're in. It included an open bar. (I know, that screams the cheapest alcohol available.) The proof though was when you went to the bar and there was all this name brand whiskeys, but they were all the same color liquids. ;) Had a great time, didn't matter, but was amusing.
There is nothing that will get your bar/club shut down faster in the U.S. then refilling/marrying bottles. That being said, you have to get caught...
Crime pays off
never do this in any foreign country or run by chinese people you'll end up with paint thinner
@@WhiskeyTribe definitely too easy to get caught at a bar, Clubs though? You'll be lucky if you get what you pay for.
The NFC tag theoretically can't detect tampering. Even if the band is cut, as long as the traces are repaired before it's scanned again, it'll show as unopened. The real fun will be what happens to the tag data and the app when a previously opened bottle gets read as sealed.
I was just wondering if the open status is something that's being registered or if the app is just getting an opened status from the tag every time and not saving it.
I would guess that as soon as Buffalo Trace's system gets an "opened" scan for any serial number it will read opened in their system from that point forward although I have definitely seen bigger programming oversights than that before.
You should sell a special edition bootleg stagg named "George B. Sagg"
Or maybe a George T. Stanza edition?
George b sad😂
Most people that buy it aftermarket would never even know.
George ball sagg
George D Swag
What result do you get for a copy of the unopened NFC if scanned after the original has been scanned as opened? Does it generate an error?
It would straight away be detected as counterfeit, because apparently the real bottles have a break detection circuit, which i don't think is standard across most nfc chips. Even if you could clone the chip, Buffalo trace would know from all the scans of the single valid serial and push a counterfeit warning back to the phone, allowing the customer to follow up with wherever they bought it from. pretty cool stuff. So the only real way for the counterfeiting to continue, is for people to be unaware theres supposed to be a chip and to look for it, or for hackers to compromise the serial database and make them with cloned serials that way until theres enough scans in multiple locations and its picked up. Pretty cool tech, and just enough to probably make the counterfeiters target easier bottles.
It says that its been opened. If it hasn't been opened, it's most likely - but not guaranteed - to be fake. It doesn't have to generate an error. If it is possible to clone labels then it is possible labels could be copied by an employee who has access to a shipment or a store that has bottles in a display case close enough to get a signal. So if you could copy them before any bottle was sold, you might be able to sell quite a few fakes before the buyers found out what was up.
@@darrell857 Well the question is, is there a server logging the tag requests?
If there isn't, then a cloned copy of an unopened tag may still report it as unopened when scanned if that data bit is sourced from the tag itself.
Hopefully they are able to recognize when an already opened bottle scans itself as "unopened" and report that to the user.
It would also be sensible (from a data-seeking perspective, not a privacy perspective) to record location of scan and other meta data that could help track the users history on the server.
Doing a packet capture of the app requests would be interesting if it isn't encrypted.
Real or not I can’t imagine spending that much money on a single bottle of whiskey. 😅
Uhhh….yeah….me neither….i definitely have NOT done that for a bottle of GTS…definitely not….
Do you think these guys would be pissed if you added coke to it?
@ they may not approve but they are the ones who coined “The whiskey you like the way you like to drink it.”
I paid $650 once for a bottle of wine it was worth it but ill never do it again
Most ppl that pay that much don't open them. There are a lot of bourbon FB groups and ppl just post pics of all these collections and nothing is opened. I guess they probably battle them like Pokémon against their friends bottles. I think some of them think they are a good investment.
BT: makes it harder to counterfeit GTS
WT: explains in detail how to counterfeit it
😂😂
To be fair, if you copy one tag and put it on a bunch of bottles, as soon as one person opens one, all of them will show opened since they all share the same serial number.
I'm currently reading a fascinating book, Bourbon Empire by Reid Mitenbuler that explores the history and mythology of American whiskey and bourbon starting in the late 1700's with the Whiskey Rebellion. Each generation as far back as the 1800's has had to combat conterfeiting with innovations like stamping barrels with complex logos to using same sized, sealed, glass bottles (glass bottles! gee). This is just another chapter in that ongoing war. With that kind of history I can absolutely believe that 30% figure of high end whiskey being fake.
Tap the top of your iPhone. The nfc tag reader is at the top by the speaker. Not on the back of the phone.
Lol, rex wants to open it so bad.
You should read about Rudy Kurniawan, who counterfeited rare wine on a massive scale in the 2000s and 2010s. Not whiskey, obvs, but an alcoholic beverage in a bottle, so lots of commonalities.
I was actually just thinking about Rudy. One of the most interesting things Bout him was that a lot of his fakes were pretty far from perfect, but people either didn't know the bottle that they were buying well enough, or just trusted him solely on reputation. The doc on him is outstanding (and I don't normally like documentaries) ~Sonny
@@WhiskeyTribeas I remember, he counterfeited vintages that didn’t exist, and that was the first step in him being caught.
@@jeffreylehman1159 If it doesn't actually exist is it really a counterfeit?
@ What? Absolutely. He was auctioning off vintages for tens if thousands of dollars with forged labels. A representative of the winery came to the auction to say that that wine, in that vintage, had not been produced.
That was the beginning of the end , I think he may have been criminally charged. You should watch the documentary, it was very interesting, and well produced.
@@jeffreylehman1159 Interesting. The comment here reminded me of a story I heard and maybe it's just that. A guy design and printed out his own $200 dollar bill. He used it at a Dairy Queen and the cashier accepted it and gave him change for it. The Store manager called it in but the Secret Service let the man go because the US does not have a $200 dollar bill.
George T. Stagg might as well be a unicorn for me.
You can buy the most expensive booze you want and there's always a non-zero chance you don't like it and just wasted your money. It's entirely too subjective and price is not a substitute for determining if it's qualities will align with your desires. Ask me how I know, btdt.
@d-rot yup my personal thing is I buy booze to drink. If it's 300 bucks I'm. Sharing it at least and enjoying the memories made. My dad was big into buying bottles and just saving them and saying when the times right. Eventually got him out of that and we've enjoyed summer nights on the porch just chatting sipping on a good whiskey with my brother and BIL.
I cannot imagine spending a thousand bucks on a bottle of any kind of liquor. Collecting bourbon is like collecting Beanie Babies.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
You can’t drink a Beanie Baby
Collecting anything in the mass production era is always dumb af. Some factory in China was 100% running third shifts unbeknownst to the ownership, or set up an entire other factory kicking out the exact same designs. And any time the legal owners could decide to make another run and demolish your "collectible's" value.
You can't drink beanie babies.
Always nice to see a new upload from the Whiskey Tribe!
P.S. Your thumbnail has a spelling error in it.
The app isn’t buggy, you’re pointing your phone wrong. The NFC part of the phone isn’t the back, it’s the top edge. If you invert your phone and touch straight down on the top of the cork, you would get a clean read every time.
Don’t pay over retail price EVER. Every time I’ve bought something for secondary price, I’ve ended up finding it for retail within the next couple months
I bought my first Eagle Rare mail order on Black Friday. I got one for MSRP the next day! 😂
@ just the way the world works 🤟🏻
@@ZahraIsMyDogmy local abc store had 3 left in stock. I bought a bottle and a bottle of Buffalo trace. I never go in to find specific stuff but if it catches my eye I grab it.
IM HALFWAY THROUGH
THIS AND SWEATING ON THAT KNIFEWORK MAN, BE CAREFUL LOL
right? the slip at 7:08 - I peed a little
I'm so glad I'm not alone. Lol
Bootlegging only occurs because people are stupid enough to pay $1,000 for a bottle of whiskey, jesus. How could it possibly be worth that much money. Did they only make one bottle.
How does anything get a high price in a capitalist system? If supply is low but demand is high, the price is also high. In this case we are talking about limited edition productions and productions by small scale businesses which can only produce a limited number of bottles each year. The original msrp on these George T. Stagg 2023 bottles was $125 a bottle. People find out how good it tastes, bottles get sold and drunk, supplies dwindle and the less bottles are available, the higher the price goes up until something better comes along. Yes, rich folk are stup1d when it comes to what they value and think is worth laying down such prices for.
Lmao imagine thinking that... Keep being that way yep gna afford that 1k bottle soon
@@ciklop4206 its literally how capitalism works buddy. Not that I would ever spend that kind of money on whiskey but that is the basics of the capilatist system.
@@rick5078 yeee it's not just whisky n capitlism tho is it... The companies spend a lot of time doing research, perfecting their techniques and technologies, employing ppl, etc. Op is being hella ignorant and narrow minded calling ppl stupid like that yo
Simple economics.
1000 buyers for every bottle available at retail.
so the price goes up until the # of buyers = the # of bottles available.
The consumers set the price, not the seller(s).
Not me on my lunch break yelling at my phone, "OPEN IT!!!" 😂
😂😂😂😂😂 Same!!!!!
Awesome video, guys. I did a video on reading my George T Stagg NFC tag recently, but you always take it to the next level! Very educational!
I ordered a GTS at a bar once and received a glass of Bulleit. I suspect one of the bar staff had finished off the GTS and covered their gluttony
Paging Mr Ollam, Mr. Deviant Ollam, you are needed on the Modern Rogue set, again...
Counterfeit whiskey is such a big problem in luxury dining you'd be amazed the amount that are the exact same color or taste profile but coming in a more expensive glass
Yeah, that's why it's pointless to buy pours of allocated or even cheap brand name liquor at a bar.
It's so easy & so profitable to counterfeit. Customers don't expect the bottles to be unopened, so they just re-fill it with anything & sell for higher than secondary.
Example: at $200 for a 1oz pour, a 750mL bottle of Pappy filled with Weller, will generate $5000 in sales.
So I would estimate that 80%+ of high end liquor (not just whiskey) in bars is fake.
Need a Daniel appearance 😢
next step to increase anti-counterfeiting measures: Have the nfc chip be placed inside the cork itself, bound to a pressure sensor. Have the nfc contain two unique id codes, one code signifies un-opened the other signifies opened. As the cork is inserted at the bottling plant, the pressure sensor registers the increase in pressure and turns the nfc chip on and tells it to broadcast the un-opened id code. The moment the cork is removed, the pressure sensor registers a significant drop in pressure and sends a signal to the nfc to now broadcast to the opened id code instead.
Next episode definitely needs to be a blind tasting episode. 4-5 bourbons of similar proof to this. The other pours should be easily accessible bottles. And 1 should be Stagg Jr too.
Curious if the app is just checking that the chip is intact, or if it's contacting a database to see if that serial number has ever turned up as opened before, and marking it as such once it is torn.
Good point.
Step one and only step... Film the opening and test the abv with a hydrometer. If not exact it's not real. It's very hard to get exact proof in a counterfeit setting. Combine that with knowledge of the mash bill and color.
I'm really enjoying this one! The anticipation of opening the bottle was great.
Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed the anticipation!
I never need to worry about it. I'm never going to buy on the gray market or spend over MSRP on a whiskey.
Lmao wipe your camera friend. 😂
I wiped my screen several times thinking I had some schmootz 🤣
I have a 1981 gold medal jack Daniel’s. I want to hang on to it just curious about the market price
Whistlepig's boss hog have been putting nfc tags on as well the past few editions.
Got a bottle about a month ago. Added it to my STAGG Jr. Cost me about $200 which I thought was great.
Thankyou for this how to video.
Thanks to you my new counterf….
I mean production business will be amazing.
😏
This is literally where I find out the still unfinished bottle of whiskey I opened and bought for $150 is selling for $1000… are you KIDDING ME
How in the world could you buy GTS and not know the market value. I get control state or whatever but even in a control state they are lottery bottles. It’s great bourbon though enjoy it.
Bourbon has become a terrible rip off. (Aside from cheap good stuff) What was affordable has been intentionally tatered up to awful prices for fools.
Its not worth 1000 bucks lol
@@samholdsworth420 Closer to $550 avg secondary, anyone paying 1k for modern GTS is getting ripped off.
Yeah, secondary is crazy. I have several bottles of scotch I bought for for £40-60 that are in the £100-300 area.
Got three bottles of Springbank 10 at the £50 msrp. Those are £150 each. It’s wild.
Got a 2024 GTS this past Saturday in a raffle to buy at store opening for $299. For the few years I have been really into Bourbon I have never been able to get a BTAC, without of course spending way more than I would ever want.
got a crazy idea:
fire-charred oak rod attached to the bottom of the cork so the whisky can continue to age in the bottle.
You should see if using the app makes it so the saved Tag Brian has still says if it is unopened. Doesnt protect from counterfeits where they never break the tag but would be good if they update the information on their end when it is opened if people are making fake tags
The fact that Heaven Hill doesn’t do this for their Parker’s Heritage products is such a goddamn crime
You forgot to do the last and most telling thing. Test the NFC tag to see if you can turn the "opened" bottle back into an "unopened" bottle by closing the circuit again. Solder what you cut, closing the circuit, rescan and make sure the server software saved the open state instead of relying on the most current scan of the tag.
Born and raised in Kentucky, there's a reason we have the BEST whiskey/shine! Haha 😂👍
George T. Stagg infinity bottle! 😂
Anyone that pays that much for whiskey should not complain about getting ripped off. The real
deal at $1000.00 is being ripped off. It’s just my opinion.
I enjoy the affordable whiskey that I can buy and cannot believe that I’d suddenly be taken to the promised land by a sip of thousand dollar whiskey.
I had gotten a bottle of Jack Daniels century in a too good to be true deal. And only knew it was fake because they had filled the bottle with the Sinatra you can still buy that I have as my favorite bottle.
Great video!
Thank God, you had a dull crappy knife!!!
Maybe Santa can get you a sharper knife! 😂😂
Another cool test would be to clone the nfc, and then read both the fake (uncut) and the real cut one and see if the app still says cut for the fake one. If so, it means they actually store that information, but if the fake reads unopened after the real one reads opened, then the entire auth is probably local. or at least they dont store that data
Or turn on airplane mode and see if the app still works.
Theres a break detection circuit according to the manufacturer. When you scan it energises the chip which does a quick check of the seals connection..So even with airplane mode on it would show as opened because one of the fields would show a 1 instead of a 0 or vice versa , But guaranteed any time that chip is scanned, its reporting the status back to the mothership. Also theres probably a interface where Buffalo peeps get a handy visualisation of how many bottles opened, where the locations are, what serials were scanned, so if they get multiple scans of the same serial in different locations they know they have a counterfeit serial and can send an alert back to the phone. This will also alert them to if their serials database has been compromised.
@Fanta.... You'd hope. But it could also try to connect to BT HQ and fall over if it can't, then refuse to scan anything, or refuse to attempt to verify anything. Depends on how much thought they put into system design before whacking up the app. Actually doing the experiment would help here.
Thanks for the video! Because of it, I went to check a 2022 GTS that I just got in NJ. So no NFC, everything looks good (labels, neck foil), but the laser code is funky. Took several pictures and sent to Buffalo Trace to get their opinion. We might be in KY after the holidays, so may stop by with the bottle for their experts to look at as well. We’ll chronicle each step of the way on our channel. Keep up the great content!
How did the NFC data change after cutting the wire? Please scan with the NFC scan app and report back if the NFC identifier changed in some way.
I know many a tech hacker who likes whiskey, but this whiskey aficionado hacking tech is cool!
Hey! And now your friend has an even better bottle! It's been on an internet video! It's famous!
Good point. The empty bottle could be worth a grand, now.
That bottles missing a shot! 😂
Great video gang!
well, I may go $100 for George T. Stagg, no way would I go $101. The local Liquor story had one for $895, it was still there when I left. I hope I become rich enough to think about buy a bottle for $1000, I would have over $101 billion (US $) in investments then I would think about it.
Sadly, this sort of thing is inevitable when something becomes a collectible.
The 1914 Lincoln penny minted in Denver is a highly-sought after coin. Demand outstrips supply. So some creative counterfeiters took the common 1944 Lincoln penny minted in Denver and filed a portion of the first "4" so that it strongly resembled the "1" in 1914. And sold what was a coin worth maybe fifty cents for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Anyone that collects coins, sports cards, non-sports cards, comic book and dang near anything else will be familiar with professional grading and authentication systems. For a fee, they will take your collectible and rate it for authenticity and for condition. In my opinion, professional grading has utterly ruined everything it has touched. How long before some enterprising folks start a company to authenticate whisk(e) y? Obviously, they can't open the bottles to authenticate the liquid, but they could examine the bottle and evaluate it for authenticity, giving you a certificate that your bottle of George T. Stagg from 2023 is "Guaranteed Authentic-Unaltered".
The best part is those graders do let counterfeits through sometimes so there is never a true guarantee.
@@Medowokha-bp5lq You'll also never convince me that someone who submits hundreds of grading requests at a time does not get better grades (or the benefit of a doubt when it comes to grading) than someone who sends in only one or two at a time.
That's a PSA Gem Mint 10 rookie bottle with a piece of the game used barrel! It's worth a zillion doll hairs! 😂
Ah being ripped off by counterfeits.
So I got done years ago. Saw a poster for Jack Daniels master distiller in a barrel, supposedly aged for 80 years. Coming in at to me an eye watering 20k aud.
But it's at a bottle-o (alchohol store), I had the money to spare at the time. So I place an order for it. Part of the price included having a personal message put on the barrel.
Also paid extra for delivery to my house instead of just the store.
It arrives, bring my fiancees family over to meet for the first time, only just proposed not long before. Crack it open, it smelt foul. Like sewer foul, looked like it too honestly.
They are pissed at me. She thinks I played some sick prank to break up with her. Was not a fun night. Tried speaking to the store after. The manager that sold me it apparently doesn't exist according to their head office (I called from in store as the workers were less than helpful).
Just had to eat the cost as I stupidly paid cash, mostly due to my bank ironically enough not allowing me to use my card, which would have been covered under insurance, to make that large a purchase.
How about solder it back and see what it says?
You should have made another nfc tag. AFTER you cut and scanned the original tag to show it had been opened. Just to see the status of the bottle and if they are actually tracking/updating it.
I just want to mention that NFC is very limited to the position of the sensor on the phone and the field it is trying to read. I’m guessing the app is rated very low because people don’t know where it is located on their phone as it even shifts between iPhone/ Galaxy models
Everyone should read The Billionaire's Vinegar!
Great book
Scanned every BT bottle I have.. none showed up. Not sure when they started adding the NFC tags...
Great show!
I have wanted to do similar with our wines tbh
Fully agree Craig - we stand in our own way
Not worth the price. Don't care if it was distilled by the gods themselves. 😂 Tho if a sucker will pay for a relate bottle I'll buy a couple of cases of decent cheap whiskey bury it and wait till I go to retire 😂
The nfc reader is at the top of the phone.
is there going to be a pert 2 to this because I didn't hear you say it was counterfeit or not? unless I just glossed over that part.
As a plebe who like MGP rye, I am happy that there is no point to counterfeit it
As an MGP evangelist, I'm glad no one would take the time to fake a Remus repeal or a Gatsby. That said one of my Grails is redemption rye 18 year (MGP sourced) and that might be worth faking ~$1,000
You do now that even the same brand varies over time and even barrel to barrel
Anyone else notice the fill level on that bottle? Go back and look at the photo in the app after scanning and see that fill level. Seems to me it's a short fill which would lead me to think that this has been refilled.
I don't think they counterfeit whiskey in my price range - but I could be wrong
Only in bars. In bars they will even fill grey goose bottles with something cheaper, but same quality & taste, so would never know.
Hmm I would warm up the label slightly and try to pull the label upwards,
Hey! Was that Brian form the magic Austin crew?? I wondered where he'd been.
Bless you!!!!
I have a question. Let's say you duplicate the NFC and give the duplicate NFC version away to another person. They open the bottle, scan the code, and say it is Open. Since it has the same serial number, will it affect the original NFC that’s not open?
BRIAN BRUSHWOOD!!!!! WOOOOO
I feel like these guys could have me on the show to show just how easy it is to fake a bottle.
BLESS YOU! 🤧
Why does the loop go over the top of the cork rather than around the circumference where cork and bottle meet? Seems like an oversight
The loop on top is the antenna. The band goes up the sides and over, and has to be intact, too.
Put it on the cork itself instead of the shrink wrap? 😂
Like yall dont make $1k from the ads on a vid
RUclips pays between .003-.005c per view on a video. You do the math.
I'm sitting here thinking "Don't do it!!!". Let's see what happens... :)
honestly this would be a great party trick at best lmao
I imagine this is a bit harder to counterfeit than is presented here - I'm assuming that "opening" the bottle results in some of the traces in the NFC tag being cut, leading to a slight difference in frequency or something. I'm kinda surprised that brian didn't write it to an NFC tag and check to see if the scan revealed it as opened or still sealed. I kinda suspect that it would have read as opened, as the in-tact state would likely have the variant from a typical NFC broadcast.
I feel like refilling this with Benchmark Full Proof would fool 90% of buyers.
Lots of effort. Im buying stuff under $35 lol. Or just going back to Beer. 😂
my Glenlivet 15 french oak reserve tastes watered down. it was $55 a few years ago , now $110
should have bought a case...
I used to say Macallan 12 sherry oak cask was too expensive ~$70. Now it's just a joke
@@WhiskeyTribe : Macallan 12 Sherry is a Toyota Carolla being sold at Lexus prices now.
@@WhiskeyTribe i like the Amber, Sienna was a trip. Dr said i had to quit drinking, bank account wasn't healthy enough.
It was called “Black Danny”
Picked up a 2024 on Saturday for $250. It has this little doohickey on it.
I went and looked at my 2024 unopened bottle and it has the same outlines on the sides of the foil. I didnt scan it though.
I need to write off a bottle of George T Stagg.. how can I do that.. for 'research'.. lol.
Guess i should have bought that $700 I found in Massachusetts last year.
I mean even if it were genuine, you still paid $1000 for whiskey...
Is this playing at like 10 frames per second for anyone else?? Or just me?
Looked normal the whole way through.
The Mooch is back.😂
You guys paying secondary for a GTS is part of the problem.
Typing error in the thumbnail!😅
Counterfiet, but the name of the episode is correct "counterfeit"
That was cool
Gotta typo in “counterfeit” on the main shot