Quit interesting topic. Well, no illusions about it, rum is faked big scale as well and we are not talking about only extremely high end stuff. Usually older OB‘s where no one have references (especially not in taste). Not allowed to go that deep into details, as I was involved in the investigations and final take down in February 2017 in London, but you have now idea….countless artificial shrinked corks, artificial matured labels, Staniols, Tax Banderoles, bottles etc….a whole faking plant and a crazy collection of genuine and faked bottles. Whisky was around 50%, followed by Rum/Rhum 30%, Cognac (back to 17th century) 10% and others like old Chartreuse etc…
Quality of the fakes where particularly extremely high and due the mix of genuine (selling tons of fakes and bought/traded genuine stuff for the „earned“ money) hard to identify, also due the huge quantities, variety’s and missing originals to compare. There are still many of this bottles around and even after 7-8 years now, I report at least 1 or 2 bottles every month to the responsible authorities.
Recommend to have a look at the 2 reports below. The arrested guy paid bail and is still on the run, as far i am up to date (was an earlier life ):
Zwar nicht speziell Rum was gefaked wird, aber trotzdem interessant, da es wohl sehr professionell gemacht wird.
Auch die Händler werden über den Tisch gezogen
I did a quick analysis/interpolation of the series numbers but as mentioned, that is not 100% guaranteed to mean anything.
For example yesterday I received the Maverick and the Neisson L’Esprit
Maverick has DSI
Espirt has DVY
Both series numbers among the highest I’ve seen and also according to my list both fall in the 2024 range. Now the Esprit is obviousl not from 2024 but rather older. First Esprit was released 2002 and there are specimen with the older (pre-2005) tax strip here. But I don’t know how long the bottles with the red wax seal have been produced.
From the oter Esprits in my collection one has CHF (~2016) and two have DMM (~2023, year of purchase as well). So it could very well be that tax strips are applied by the shop at time of stocking or at time of sale or anytime inbetween. This makes a valid case for recent stamps on older bottles and further invalidates tax strips as means of judging authenticity.
The 1996 Diamond has CWR which is rather 2019 than 2010. The one listed on their page has BLN which is a much closer fit for 2010/2011. Now why such a recent tax strip is fount on that Diamond 1996 is anyones guess.
Sometimes I get the feeling that not all bottles are brought to the market straight away.
Whether that is to create artificial scarcity and raise the prices, I do not know. It certainly would help to sell a second batch for a higher price.
Where my knowledge lacks is when you need to pay tax/get the tax band onto the bottle. If this is only when you put the bottles for sale, my theory can make sense. If this is not the case, I am definitely wrong.
As an example: the Last Ward bottles from the Habitation Velier series were mostly gone from the market beginning of this year. Over the last few months they started to pop up in different webshops simultaneously. Too many to come from auction if you ask me. Where are they coming from?
I assume that the tax strip has to be applied as soon as the spirit reaches it’s designated country / the wholesaler.
Even transport without taxation needs to be approved by customs. See for example here, German but following an EU Directive:
Innerhalb des deutschen Steuergebiets können verbrauchsteuerpflichtige Waren unter Steueraussetzung aus einem Steuerlager oder von registrierten Versendern vom Ort der Einfuhr
in ein anderes Steuerlager,
in einen Betrieb, dessen Inhaber eine Erlaubnis zur steuerfreien Verwendung besitzt oder
I can imagine that a big importer/distributor like Velier could have a permit for tax-exemption in order to keep doing financial healthy business. If you already have to pay tax over your stocks, it would mean a huge cost on not yet realised sales. Perhaps they only pay tax and put on the band once they start to distribute the goods to the sellers.
If this is true it could explain the higher range of the tax band. I would be weary though myself, to acquire such a bottle at auction. Especially because they are not cheap.
Luckily my memory is very limited so I will soon forget the tax band logic as explained by Devidedbyzero. Ignorance is bliss at auction.
That’s most likely the case. I think I saw a post from Jurgens WhiskyHuis who moved his physical shop to Spain and had a picture where he had to label hundreds of bottles with the Spanish strip.
If true, this would only mean that the bottle has arrived at Spirit Academy/in Italy this year and spent it’s former live somewhere else (i.e. in a shop or warehouse in a country without tax strips). Totally plausible as well but renders the tax strip useless all the same.
The current series uses 3 letters that seem to increase over time and was introduced 2005. So assuming 2005 is AAA. With the help of the Internet it’s not difficult to find numbers on bottles where the release year is more or less known (Caroni employees, Rhum Rhum Liberation, …). Assuming letters increase AAA->AAB->AAC and so on it’s not hard to interpolate. Doing so does reveal an almost linear trend. The “almost”-part can be explained by an increase in bottles per year which is plausible. Anyhow, you end up with a list that matches observations quite well, with the occasional outlier that is explained by old label stock on newer bottles and (as above) older bottles making it to Italy later and getting a more recent strip.
No, nothing official that I’m aware of. Only tinfoil hat theories
Well, it’s not a particularly good result. The current series was introduced in 2005 and I’ve yet to see a number starting with E.
If you have specific things you want to check, pm me. But as I said, it’s not very useful as “proof” for anything because there are plausible outliers on both sides.
Edit:
Let me guess: DSI?
Has anyone seen E? I have E starting mid next year, which sounds ok-ish if we’re in the “DS*” region now. But like I said, it’s not 100% linear over time.
older bottles making it to Italy later and getting a more recent strip.
Second-hand bottles do not receive stamps in Italy either. You can also find those without stamps in webshops. Many years after the start of distribution, another case is difficult to imagine.
Yes and no, when an older bottling is entering the European Union in Italy on a commercial basis it will also receive a taxation strip as a second-hand bottle.
I am not familiar with the Italian excise regulations. Community directives only mention the possibility of tax designations. However, the Italians apparently do not use this option for all imported products. If different regulations apply to bottles coming from outside the EU than those coming from the EU, then you may be right. Similar to value added tax, excise tax is governed by the destination country principle, regardless of the country of origin.
*COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2008/118/EC
of 16 December 2008
Marking
Article 39
Without prejudice to Article 7(1), Member States may require that excise goods carry tax markings or national identification marks used for fiscal purposes at the time when they are released for consumption in their territory, or, in the cases provided for in Article 33(1), first subparagraph, and Article 36(1), when they enter their territory.*
):
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