A bar attender pours a shot of whiskey. Fake liquor is on the market. If you are paying for it, be sure it is legit. PHOTO/www.istockimages.com
We arrived at this fancy Bugolobi pub in high spirits, literally, because we had been drinking some gin the whole evening. We were in the mood for a big shindig. By coincidence, one of our boys had just returned from the UK where he works for an international audit firm, while another of our boys had just closed a fat job he’d been chasing for months. Both gentlemen were very elated to say the least. The London boy, swimming in expatriate dollars, was willing to throw a massive party for the big-break boy.
It was past midnight but the street was full of cars fighting for the limited parking spaces. We had called earlier to book a VVIP table. As soon as we sat down, four smoking-hot girls barely in their 20s (yes, the brown-thigh type) thronged to our table with our drinks. The special buckets containing our drinks were fitted with erupting pyrotechnics; sparks were shooting to the roof, above people’s heads as the girls made their way through the milling crowd.
The waitresses poured us some shots and we started partying. As soon as we had started drinking, one of the guys stopped for a moment to say that the whiskey didn’t taste right. We all agreed that it didn’t taste right but somehow, we shrugged our shoulders thinking we were getting too drunk. There was no way this A-lister pub could sell us fake liquor, we thought. We continued having a blast untill morning.
Fast Forward to a month later, a video shows up on social media confirming what we all feared. In the video, top bar promoter Maxim Kizito said on good authority that some top pubs in Kampala are knowingly serving fake liquor. He added that some of most expensive liquors on the Ugandan market are often counterfeited and sold to high-end pubs, with more counterfeiting likely happening in-house.
“There’s a pandemic going around in Kampala where bars are serving fake liquor and they need to stop that. Bar owners sell fake bottles of alcohol expensively because they wanna make more money. They think because we are drunk, they can give us a fake bottle of tequila, because they know we won’t notice. They’re putting methanol in whiskey bottles to sell in high-end bars,” he said in the video.
Many came out to support his assertions. Salvador Indringi and Spice Diana were some of the celebrities who reiterated the assertion. One X user wrote, “A certain bar in Kololo served fake tequila. When called out, the manager came and had a long argument until he gave up and brought a new bottle.”
Another added, “I totally agree with him. Recently I went to some high-end bar in Kololo and bought 3 shots of tequila but I didn’t feel anything. Completely nothing.”
Another tweeted: “I have a boy of mine who is a bartender and he told me how they use Bond7 to make Jack Daniels.”
Hilarious.
Clearly, Kizito had hit a nerve. From the social media testimonies, it appears that top tequilas and whiskeys are the most notoriously counterfeited drinks. While it is highly probable that we have all taken a counterfeit drink at one point, it is truly painful when it is served at a high-end pub where you pay half a million for a bottle.
So we tracked down this liquor connoisseur to pick his mind a little more over the matter. First, he confirmed why his assertion was from good authority.
“I have knowledge about liquor and brands because I work with a lot of them. I know personally from the people who are importing liquor. I’m talking about people who import whiskey, people who import vodkas and wines on contract from the actual manufacturers. So, whatever they ship is, of course, original. But they get a lot of complaints from the final consumers, because of the counterfeits,” he said.
Fight back
Kizito was cautious not to mention the pubs that have been taking advantage of drunk patrons or the brands. He was also unwilling to guess the people behind the fake liquor because he didn’t want to step on any toes. But he advised patrons to fight back.
“I’m not trying to have a battle with whoever is importing these drinks. But I think it is shameful that bars are accepting this. I don’t care if cheap bars do it. However, when we go to fancy places, nice lounges or nightclubs, and we are paying Shs300,000 plus for a bottle, it should not be fake. And that’s just one bottle. Most people end up buying a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of champagne, and a bottle of tequila, spending over Shs 1 million at this bar. So you expect your money’s worth,” Kizito said.
The reason most people never catch a counterfeit drink is because they are in the moment and have no time to investigate the bottle. They just open it and start drinking. Kizito advised that every time you order a bottle, first smell it, take a small sip to taste it.
“Personally, I taste my drink with the intention of catching anything that is off. After tasting it, I have to ask my friends, what do you think? Because sometimes you don’t know. You don’t realize it until your stomach starts paining so much. Investigate the bottle, and the label, and the smell. People need to learn to immediately do that,” he says.
“Many times, they remove half the tequila and they replace it with water. You take a shot of tequila and you feel nothing. The Tequila has too much water, and the whiskey is fake,” he said.
“Walk up to the manager, the bar staff, put the bottle in front of them, and say, this is a fake bottle, and I demand to talk to the owner or the manager. I want my money back,” Kizito said.
Leah Kemigisha, a waitress at a posh pub in Entebbe Town, says pubs only cheat their drunk customers in different ways. “For instance, when a group of customers have just come, you give them the tequila that they have asked for, but after they are drunk, even if you give them UG in a tequila bottle, they don’t notice,” she said.
There you have it. Fake liquor is on the market. If you are paying a lot of money for it, you have the right to refuse to pay your bill. That’s the way to defeat the fraud.
