Pub’s vodka ‘unfit for human consumption’

A pub manager has been jailed for nine months after being found guilty of stocking and selling almost 1,000 bottles of counterfeit vodka that’s “unfit for human consumption”.

Barbara Gallimore, landlady of the White House Pub in Liverpool, UK, appeared in Liverpool Crown Court with her partner Cedrick Fitzpatrick, who ran the pub on her behalf, following an investigation by trading standards officers.

A total of 949 fake bottles of Drops, Prince Consort Imperial, Revolution vodka and Dexter whisky were discovered from the pub and couple’s home, worth a net profit of £46,709.

Analysis of the liquids found the whisky had not been matured long enough while the vodka contained industrial “denatured” alcohol, an alternative name for methylated spirits and two-and-a-half times more toxic than ethanol.

Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to failing to provide traceability of food, offering food for sale not of the substance demanded, placing unsafe food on the market and engaging in prohibited commercial practice and was handed a nine month jail sentence.

Gallimore admitted similar offences, although fewer, and was served a six month prison sentence, which was suspended for a year.

“You cheated your customers by selling them products that were not what they pretended,” the judge Recorder Long said, as reported by the Liverpool Echo.

“Worse still than cheating your customers, you were selling as vodka a substance unfit for human consumption.

“You pleaded on the basis that you did not do so deliberately but when you buy black market goods of untraceable provenance you take that risk.”