Sanlitun bars' bogus booze 'not harmful to health' (2)

Other Sanlitun bar owners, such as Stephan Luga, who runs Lugas, said customers should be careful if all the alcohol in a bar is priced too cheaply.

"I pay the supplier a little more money to ensure the quality, and alcohol company representatives will often inspect my bar," he said.

Jim Boyce, who runs a popular Beijing bar scene blog, said he is unsurprised by the news.

"Big-name brands are more likely to be faked because they are in demand by bars and customers," said Boyce.

Boyce suggested that it is better to go to the places you trust.

"Go to places where both the bartenders and the customers know the difference between fake and real booze. If you're in a bar where people simply want to get wasted as cheaply as possible, the risk goes up," he said, confirming that big-name alcohol companies often inspect bars in Beijing.

Not all of Beijing's bar goers believe the assertion that fake alcohol is harmless to health.

"But it's difficult to distinguish them once you're a little drunk," university instructor and Sanlitun regular Carlos Ottery said.

Police discovered the capital's biggest fake alcohol workshop was making more than 200 boxes of fake alcohol every month which it then sold to bars, according to a Beijing Times report on May 14, 2011. \

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