Updated November 03, 2017 14:40:43

Photo: Author Zhang Wei and hotel manager Sandro Bernasconi (R) with the scotch. (Supplied: Sandro Bernasconi)

A bottle of scotch thought to be so rare a Chinese writer paid more than $12,000 for a single dram in a Swiss hotel has turned out to be a fake, laboratory tests have concluded.

The BBC reported 36-year-old Beijing writer Zhang Wei paid 10,000 Swiss francs ($12,864) for the shot of 1878 Macallan's while visiting the Waldhaus Am See hotel in St Moritz.

It was believed to be the largest amount ever paid for a poured dram of scotch.

After the tasting, he posted on Chinese social media site Weibo he had not worried about the price.

"My grandma who accompanied me on this trip was only 82, yet the alcohol was 139 years old — same age as my grandma's grandma," he wrote in Mandarin.

"To answer you all, it had a good taste. It's not just the taste, but also history."

The scotch was poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt, but media coverage of the event raised questions among whisky experts, who spotted discrepancies in the bottle's cork and label.

Photo: The fake Macallan 1878 "single malt" scotch bottle would have been worth $389,226 if it was genuine. (Supplied: Sandro Bernasconi)

The hotel sent a sample of the scotch to specialists Rare Whisky 101, the University of Oxford, and Fife-based Tatlock and Thomson for analysis.

Testing revealed the rare "single malt" was probably a blended scotch, comprising 60 per cent malt and 40 per cent grain — and there was a 95 per cent probability it had been created between 1970 and 1972.

Waldhaus manager Sandro Bernasconi told BBC Scotland the hotel had no idea the bottle was a fake.

"My father bought the bottle of Macallan 25 years ago, when he was manager of this hotel, and it had not been opened," he said.

Mr Bernasconi flew to China to offer Wei a refund, and said it was the hotel's duty to ensure their stock was authentic.

"When I showed him the results, he was not angry — he thanked me very much for the hotel's honesty and said his experience in Switzerland had been good.

"The result has been a big shock to the system, and we are delighted to have repaid our customer in full as a gesture of goodwill."

Had the bottle been genuine, it would have been worth about $389,226.

Photo: The whisky bar in Waldhaus Am See hotel, St Moritz. (Supplied: Waldhaus Am See)

Topics: human-interest, offbeat, switzerland

First posted November 03, 2017 10:35:56