Third of rare Scotch whiskies tested found to be fake
20 December 2018
More than a third of vintage Scotch whiskies tested at a specialist laboratory have been found to be fake, BBC Scotland has learned.
Twenty-one out of 55 bottles of rare Scotch were deemed to be outright fakes or whiskies not distilled in the year declared.
The tests were conducted at the East Kilbride-based Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC). It used advanced radiocarbon dating techniques to reach its conclusions.
SUERC measured residual concentrations of a radioactive isotope of carbon present in the alcohol contained in each bottle in order to establish the ages of the whiskies. Continue reading