An authenticity of a bottle of Macallan 1878 was called into question, by experts following media coverage, when a Chinese customer, named in press reports as 36-year-old writer Zhang Wei from Beijing, paid almost 10,000 Swiss francs (£7,700, $10,050) for a single glass of the ultra-rare Scotch whisky over the summer.

The Waldhaus Hotel Am See in St Moritz, Switzerland, who own the bottle, hired Rare Whisky 101, a Scottish brokerage and consultancy, to commission an analysis at the University of Oxford on the hotel’s behalf and found that the liquid inside the Macallan 1878 bottle was likely only created between 1970 and 1972.

Further tests, conducted by tests by Tatlock and Thomson lab showed the whisky was probably a blend of 60% malt and 40% grain; in other words, it was not a single malt Scotch whisky.

With this in mind the hotel flew a representative to Beijing to personally refund the customer.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. In 2016 Rare Whisky 101 revealed that a bottle of Laphroaig 1903 worth £100,000 – supposedly one of the oldest whiskies from the Islay distillery still in existence – as well as two sets of Fine and Rare Macallan worth £500,000 and £250,000, turned out to be fake.

Part of the issue, according to Rare Whisky 101, is that with whisky growing as an investment category, the number – and the quality – of fakes is also on the rise.

As your investments & acquisitions manager, VivereXO will not only do research, assess the bottle and its packaging presentation and send it to experts for testing, if necessary, to make sure that your investment is a 100 percent sure of its provenance. But we only purchase your acquisitions from reputable sources such as Diageo, Johnnie Walker & Jeffrey St. To learn more about how we identify and obtain small batch, rare and ultra premium spirits from around the world feel free to submit a request or for immediate assistance email us directly at ourworld@vivere-xo.com.