Know Your Lagavulin

I'm sick today, so you get this refried news story--though it is a good one. 

In one case, a New Jersey bar allegedly mixed rubbing alcohol with caramel food coloring and served it as scotch.

In another, a bar is accused of pouring dirty water into an empty bottle and passing it off as liquor.

Those are some of the details state officials released today after a year-long investigation called "Operation Swill," which culminated Wednesday when more than 100 investigators raided 29 bars and restaurants across New Jersey on the suspicion they had been serving cheap alcohol disguised as premium brands.

I know that wine researchers regularly find that tasters can't tell the difference between a tumbler of plonk and expensive Burgundy, but really: who's going to be fooled into thinking that a $12 shot of dirty water is Lagavulin?  Bourbon, which is really just fermented, distilled Karo*, I could imagine, but good Scotch?

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*I kid!, I kid my bourbon-drinking friends.