Bottles seized in the pub owned by former hurler of the year Lar Corbett were found to contain “counterfeit vodka,” a court was told on Tuesday.

Mr Corbett, through his company Marlstone Investments, has denied breaching Revenue legislation by having 16.1 litres of spirits for sale at his pub in Thurles, Co Tipperary, without having paid the appropriate rate of tax.

The offence is alleged to have been detected by Revenue officials following a visit to his Coppinger’s Bar on Parnell Street in Thurles on January 29th, 2015.

The case was adjourned on Tuesday at Thurles district court when Judge Elizabeth McGrath gave the prosecution time to address a legal point made by Mr Corbett’s defence lawyer, Pádraig De Búrca BL, that there was “no evidence” put before the court in relation to the correct rates of tax.

During evidence, the court was told by Michael Doyle of the state laboratories that a sample taken from one of 23 bottles taken from Coppinger’s Bar “was neither pure vodka nor was it Smirnoff vodka,” which it purported to be.

EU regulations stipulate that vodka must have an alcohol level of 37.5 per cent, while this sample’s alcohol level was 34.1 per cent, Mr Doyle said. “That doesn’t qualify it as vodka.”

Another witness called by the prosecution, Colin Cushley of Diageo, said that the closure on a bottle given to him for testing was “fake” and the Smirnoff labelling was “fake”.

A “lock code” engraved on the bottle indicated the glass was genuine, he said, but indicated the bottle was filled in the UK, which was contrary to the labelling which stated “made in Ireland”.

Customs and Excise official Seán Moloney said he visited the pub on January 29th with a colleague and saw “tell-tale signs” which indicated “discrepancies” on a number of bottles labelled as Smirnoff vodka.

Among the tests was the use of a device, known as an “authenticator,” which electronically showed if the “closure” on the bottle was genuine or not and it showed it was not genuine.

Sarah Cushnahan, also from Customs and Excise, said she sent two of the bottles taken from Coppinger’s to Diageo and the state laboratories and later received a report from the Diageo expert to say it was “counterfeit vodka” and from the state lab to say “it wasn’t consistent with Smirnoff vodka”.

She spoke to Mr Corbett in his pub on March 13th of last year and he confirmed he was the director of Marlstone Investments, in whose name the pub was, but wasn’t involved in the “day-to-day running of the pub”.

He named a wholesalers and an off-licence from whom they bought vodka, and gave receipts to Ms Cushnahan. He had never ordered counterfeit vodka, he told her. The Customs and Excise official visited both named premises and found that bottles of Smirnoff present in them “appeared genuine”.

Judge McGrath said, following submissions, that it has been established that the spirit analysed “is not genuine Smirnoff vodka and is below the rate of alcohol, as per the EU regulations”.

But she couldn’t “jump to a conclusion” that that meant the correct rate of tax hadn’t been paid.

State solicitor Michelle O’Connor asked for time to address that issue and the judge adjourned the case until next Tuesday, September 27th.