Schrödinger’s whisky: the genuine fake

It all started with cucumbers, or to be precise when I was doing a class with Bernard Lahousse from foodpairing.com on shared aromas between whisky and foods.

Bernard is a scientist, and he and his colleagues on the site are continually researching how these shared aromatic molecules can widen the potential for different and fascinating combinations – who would have thought oysters and chocolate would go together, for example? The potential uses for chefs and bartenders are vast. 

Anyhoo, during the talk, he pointed out that cucumber only smells of ‘cucumber’ when it is cut. In other words, a cucumber is a cucumber, but not a ‘cucumber’ until there is an intervention. It exists in two worlds simultaneously.

‘So, it’s Schrödinger’s vegetable if you like?’ I asked. He looked at me in the way that scientists often do when I blunder into their world. ‘Well, not exactly...’ he started.

‘I know, because Schrödinger’s conundrum was to do with waves and quantum physics, but you know it boils down to the fact that there’s this cat in a steel box with a Geiger counter, a vial of poison, a hammer and a radioactive substance, all of which will at some point kill the cat, but as you won’t know if the cat’s dead or not until you open the box, it’s both alive and dead at the same time. Like, er, the cucumber,’ I finished. He gave me a look.  

I thought that the only possible whisky connection with the cat was through this tenuous link until, suspiciously close to April Fool’s Day, I was alerted to a potential fake by a concerned reader.

Real thing?: The bottle may not be entirely genuine, but what’s inside it?

He was concerned about a single cask bottling of Highland Park 1977 which had won the 2003 Scottish Field Merchants’ Challenge, and which had appeared on scotchwhiskyauctions.com.

I checked the label and compared it to the others which the house had sold, and it was certainly suspicious. The colour of the label was wrong, the printing was crude, it had a spelling mistake and there were no cut-outs on the back label allowing you to see the liquid. 

So I got in touch with Tam Gardiner at Scotch Whisky Auctions and they withdrew it immediately pending investigation. All good and in line with what all auction houses should do. 

Then Tam called. ‘I’ve been in touch with the vendor,’ he told me. ‘It turns out that this was bought at Royal Mile Whiskies’ auction, and he’s just put it up for sale with us.’

Off I went again and, sure enough, in RMW’s archive there was the offending bottle, which had a hammer price of £735. This time, however, there was an explanation as to why the label was incorrect. Apparently, the bottle had been used for photographic purposes, and they couldn’t guarantee what was inside.

I spoke to RMW’s auctioneer Dr Chris White, who explained that ‘a prototype label was created, which was designed to be as similar as possible to the final label; however, time pressures meant the label was printed on regular gloss paper, and applied to the bottle in order to get the photos done ASAP. 

‘The photographer says he wasn’t told at the time if the liquid inside the bottle is indeed the 1977 HP liquid or not. As such, we added a disclaimer to the product description before the bottle went live in our auction.’

Poorly printed: At first glance, this 1977 Highland Park bottle looks like a clumsy fake

So no-one has done anything wrong. In fact, you could say that RMW’s openness is laudable. Sadly, Highland Park can’t confirm what is in the bottle either.  

‘We do occasionally mock up bottles for photography, but they are labelled “sample” on the base or the rear, and this obviously has not,’ said brand director Jason Craig.

‘This liquid might be the legit liquid bottled early, with a mock-up label for photography – but, regardless, it is not a real bottle. The liquid of course could be Famous Grouse with spirit caramel to darken it down to match the real liquid tint, and not formally labelled. It’s hard to provide a definitive answer.’

While I really don’t think anyone from the original vendor onwards was trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes here, it does show the absurdity of the auction market that someone is willing to take a £735 punt on a bottle which they know might not be what the label says it is. What’s even more absurd is that they then flip it, assuming that they’ll make a profit! 

So we have a Schrödinger’s bottle which is and isn’t Highland Park, which is and isn’t a fake. Come to think of it, even if it is the real Highland Park, it’s still a fake. Wonder what Schrödinger would have made of that? 

Like his cat – or the smell of cucumbers – the truth can only be proved one way or another by intervention. Which maybe is the message to take from all of this. Whisky only gets its true value when it is destroyed – and you drink it.