When Chinese millionaire, Zhang Wei, splashed out £7,600 on the world’s most expensive whisky shot in a Swiss bar, he boasted to his fans that it was the same age as his great, great grandmother would have been – 139 years old.

Unfortunately for the martial arts fantasy writer, the headlines generated not only admiration, but suspicion by experts who doubted the authenticity of the spirit’s true provenance when they spotted discrepancies in the bottle’s cork and label.

An analysis from Scottish experts has now confirmed that Mr Zhang was unwittingly duped into buying a fake dram, and the Waldhaus am See hotel in St Moritz has recently flown its manager, Sandro Bernasconi, to China to reimburse him, reported the BBC.