Buyer's Guides
Practical, plain-language guides to authenticating premium and allocated spirits — what to check, what those checks can't tell you, and how sealed provenance settles it.
A tap tells you a lot — where a bottle came from, whether it's still sealed, who has held it. It also can't tell you some things, and being clear about the line is the whole point.
Read guideThe label is genuine. The glass is genuine. The codes are genuine. The only thing that isn't is the liquid — and that's exactly what makes a refilled bottle the hardest fraud to catch.
Read guideThe bottle looks right. The label looks right. The seal looks intact. None of that proves what's inside — because the most common spirits fraud refills a genuine bottle rather than forging one.
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