Christmas time and New Year’s Eve are coming, so the majority of people are planning to celebrate these crucial dates with some alcohol. It is quite possible that you might be planning to purchase a somewhat greater amount of alcohol for parties or as a present for your relatives and friends. There is nothing strange if you would like to purchase the beverages for an attractive price.
Yet, it is crucial to understand that sometimes a wish to buy alcohol for a lower price can lead to getting counterfeit alcohol. Unfortunately, such beverages in all likelihood are not just less tasty than their original versions. They can turn out to be rather toxic and cause severe damage in the body or even have lethal effects. For that reason it is crucial to be careful while shopping for alcohol and one of the simplest ways is to check the bottle.
The appearance of a bottle
Sometimes, the manufacturers of counterfeit alcohol are producing bottles for their products on their own. In the majority of such situations, there are great differences between the original bottles and the fake ones. As you can imagine, the bottles made by such manufacturers tend to be less complex than the bottles used by the genuine brands. This is true for the general shape of bottles as well as for the relief design of bottles which is usually simply omitted by the manufacturers of the counterfeit alcohol.
What should you do if the manufacturer is using the original bottles for alcohol?
Certainly, there are many manufacturers producing their counterfeit alcohol and selling it in the original bottles. Of course, in such a situations, you will not see any differences between the quality of bottles. Yet, there is still high probability that the quality of the plastic film on the top of the bottle. Original brand products always have the film attached to the bottle in an ideal way so that there are no defects. At the same time, counterfeit alcohol is usually sold in the bottles with damaged film which also tends to have blurred text. That is why, if you notice anything strange on such a film, it should be a signal for you that the alcohol might not be produced by the real brand.
All the elements added to the top of the bottle in order to make it easier for a customer to open it should work properly. Of course, you can check it only when you already buy a bottle of alcohol and start unpacking it at home, however, you can immediately notice something strange if such elements are rotating on the top of the bottle rather than tearing the film and allowing you to open the bottle.
The information on the label
The label of a bottle is a crucial source of information for a customer and brand alcohol has to contain several important things.
Of course, there has to be the information about the exact type of the product. The label must contain the exact information about the volume of the product contained in the bottle as well as the amount of alcohol in the product which should be given as a percentage. There also must be information about the amount of sugar residing in the product in case it was used for the production of alcohol. In addition to it, the label must contain the information about the nutritional value of the product.
You should also pay your attention to the information on the addresses including the official address of the manufacturer and the places where the product was made and packaged. Moreover, there also must be information on the documents according to which the alcohol product was manufactured.
Certainly, you also should be able to find the date when the alcohol was bottled, however, you should be aware of the fact such information might be available on other parts of the bottle and not necessarily on the label itself. For example, it might be given straight on the bottle. In case there is a date of expiration, it must be mentioned as well.
Finally, original alcohol always has warning information.
Keep in mind that imported alcohol also has to be equipped into an extra label with all of this information translated into the official language of your country.
Excise stamp
It goes without saying that alcohol must have excise stamp on the bottle. Such stamps are made of special paper consisting of coloured fibres. All of the information on the stamp has to be precisely printed and absolutely readable.
Many countries have their official apps for checking excise stamps.