When Chinese millionaire, Zhang Wei, splashed out £7,600 on the world’s most expensive whisky shot in a Swiss bar, he boasted to his fans that it was the same age as his great, great grandmother would have been – 139 years old.
Unfortunately for the martial arts fantasy writer, the headlines generated not only admiration, but suspicion by experts who doubted the authenticity of the spirit’s true provenance when they spotted discrepancies in the bottle’s cork and label.
An analysis from Scottish experts has now confirmed that Mr Zhang was unwittingly duped into buying a fake dram, and the Waldhaus am See hotel in St Moritz has recently flown its manager, Sandro Bernasconi, to China to reimburse him, reported the BBC.
"Analysis has shown the whisky was not as advertised"
The whisky had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt, and Mr Zhang’s shot is believed to have been the largest sum ever paid for a poured dram of Scotch. Had the bottle been genuine, it would have been worth £227,000.
When doubts emerged about its provenance, the hotel sent the whisky to specialists in Dunfermline who carried out carbon dating tests that showed it was probably made between 1970 and 1972. Further lab tests revealed it was probably a blended a Scotch and not a single malt.
Mr Bernasconi flew to China to break the bad news to Mr Zhang and to pay him back but he said the author was not angry. “He thanked me very much for the hotel’s honesty,” he told the BBC.
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