The 'terrifying' lab test results from a bottle of store-bought vodka | 7.30

[00:00:04]Spirits on sale for $35. [music] It's a price that's hard to resist, but what's inside the bottle could cost you more.

[00:00:13]>> This is not fit for human [music] consumption. Nobody should be drinking this.

[00:00:17]>> Dirt cheap and toxic.

[00:00:19]>> I'm worried by the prevalence of this.

[00:00:22]Really, really worried about it.

[00:00:24]>> 7:30 visited independent bottle shops around Melbourne [music] and found suspected illicit spirits on shelves next to legal products. One [music] bottle of vodka we bought in May contained a chemical used in paint stripper.

[00:00:38]>> [music] >> So, the bottle that you had tested and your results were actually to be honest, quite terrifying.

[00:00:44]>> I just need to talk to you about this because we're we're doing a story on Dirty George Vodka.

[00:00:55]>> Australia's illicit alcohol trade is on the rise. In 2023-24, it cost the federal government around [music] $800 million in unpaid tax, and experts warn the black market is only getting bigger.

[00:01:09]Dr. Michaela Kowalski [music] is an alcohol and drug researcher who recently produced a report on the [music] extent of illicit alcohol in Australia.

[00:01:18]>> We've been to just about 200 stores across kind of the eastern seaboard of Australia, so New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland. And 30% of the stores we've gone to were actually stocking illicit alcohol products.

[00:01:32]Seems to be quite widespread.

[00:01:35]>> Liquor companies pay a tax on each bottle they produce. It's this tax that makes [music] up a large portion of the retail price of legal spirits. The tax is calculated according to volume and alcohol content. A 700 mil bottle with 40% alcohol is taxed at $30. So, any bottle being sold for $35 or less is a red flag >> [music] >> that taxes may have been evaded. Cheap labeling, broken caps, missing batch numbers, and incorrect pregnancy warnings are also [music] indicators.

[00:02:06]There's also the issue of quality control. During Dr. Michaela Kowalski's research, she tested three suspected illicit spirits and found contaminants in two of the samples.

[00:02:18]>> What we found there was that two of the bottles actually contained methanol and plasticizers. Both of those are things that you don't want to have in vodka.

[00:02:26]You don't want to be drinking them.

[00:02:28]Um they can cause kind of long-term damage.

[00:02:32]>> We bought a big bottle of vodka, more than a liter, called Dirty George, for $59 in Mulgrave in Melbourne's East.

[00:02:39]There's no batch details. The pregnancy warning is wrong, and the cap doesn't work.

[00:02:47]7:30 commissioned testing of the bottle by an independent laboratory in Melbourne's North.

[00:02:53]>> What did you find here in the sample?

[00:02:56]>> We detected [music] um tert-butyl alcohol at about 500 mg [music] per liter.

[00:03:04]Um so tert-butyl alcohol is typically used to denature industrial alcohol or to prevent industrial alcohol from being um consumed for human use.

[00:03:17]That same sample, we also found that it contained about um 3% of glycerine.

[00:03:24]Uh So glycerine can be added as a sweetener or as a masking agent. Um to find those two compounds present in the sample is um unusual and uh unexpected.

[00:03:38]>> You test a lot of beer, wine, spirits.

[00:03:42]Do you normally find tert-butyl alcohol in them?

[00:03:45]>> No. No. This would probably be one of the first samples that we've detected uh tert-butyl alcohol in.

[00:03:52]>> You do not want to be drinking tert-butyl, full stop. You're not meant to drink it. It was never meant to be in a drink.

[00:03:57]>> So, tert-butyl could be used as kind of a paint stripper, as kind of an industrial cleaner. In Australia, kind of the recipe where you find it on its own with alcohol, that's usually going to be a base for a perfume or um hand sanitizer.

[00:04:13]>> Heavy drinkers [music] and people with a limited income are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of illicit [music] alcohol.

[00:04:21]Dr. Eric Hedonata is an addiction medicine specialist in Melbourne.

[00:04:25]>> And some of the health effects of drinking high amounts of um tert-butyl alcohol in animal studies were kidney and bladder issues, okay? And over time, there were um they detected kidney and thyroid cancers, okay? And there were some uh mortality.

[00:04:43]>> This is just EPA. This is >> He says tert-butyl poisoning could be flying under the radar for patients treated for substance abuse.

[00:04:51]>> Now, I do need to look back at at at all my patients that that I can't explain um why they have such significant organ damage um and and consider uh whether whether or not uh my hypothesis um of of why they're having such significant organ damage whether or not adulterants might might be uh one of the differential diagnosis.

[00:05:14]>> We contacted IGA's operator, Metcash, about our findings. In a statement, the company told us it is investigating the matter and believes the store here was unaware the product may have been illicit.

[00:05:28]>> Toscani Beverages is behind Dirty George Vodka.

[00:05:31]Following a search of company records, we went to an address linked to the company in Doncaster.

[00:05:37]I'm just looking for the owner of Dirty George Vodka.

[00:05:41]>> owner.

[00:05:41]>> Yes, great.

[00:05:42]>> I'm the owner, but >> Yes.

[00:05:45]>> Um all my lawyers, I've I've spoken to my lawyers and everything cuz um, someone's been copying our brand.

[00:05:54]>> Really? That's what I wanted to talk to you about because we've done lab results. We've done a lab test on it and it's come up with adverse findings. So, you aware of that?

[00:06:03]>> I'm not aware of the lab thing, but we don't manufacture. We just a >> Oh.

[00:06:08]>> We get that made from a manufacturer.

[00:06:10]I don't want you to film me.

[00:06:12]>> Okay. I just need to talk to you about this because we're we're doing a story on Dirty George Vodka.

[00:06:19]>> Steve James is the director of the company and said he was unaware of any contaminants [music] and said someone else was producing counterfeit products under the Dirty George label.

[00:06:29]>> So, what we found is there's tert-butyl alcohol in this, which is a denaturant in industrial alcohol.

[00:06:37]>> It's not It's not us.

[00:06:39]>> Okay.

[00:06:39]>> That's all I can say.

[00:06:42]>> Lawyers for Toscani [music] Beverages told 7:30 they have reported what they believe to be counterfeit Dirty George products to Liquor Control Victoria and would [music] cooperate with any investigation. They said all genuine Toscani Beverages products [music] are manufactured and bottled through a properly licensed manufacturing facility. The company has not received any advice or notice from the facility [music] or from any regulator indicating that its products are unsafe or non-compliant.

[00:07:10]>> We've actually seen that brand in our audits. That's one that we flagged.

[00:07:15]>> Dr. Michaela Kowalski raised these concerns about [music] vodka labeled as Dirty George with authorities.

[00:07:21]>> We've discussed our results with the different like liquor control um, agencies, police, health departments.

[00:07:32]>> There are three ways illicit alcohol can make it into the Australian market: through [music] the fraudulent manufacture of alcohol that avoids tax altogether, the licensed manufacture of alcohol in a distillery but under reporting sales and not paying [music] excise, and smuggling alcohol into the country without paying excise [music] duty.

[00:07:53]There's a few kind of quirks in our regulatory system.

[00:07:57]So, to sell alcohol, you need to have a you need to have a liquor license, whether you're a resale like whether you're a retailer, a wholesaler, you need to have a liquor license.

[00:08:06]But, the catch is that if you've got a bottle shop, you don't actually have to check if your supplier is licensed and above board and doing the right thing.

[00:08:15]We contacted Victoria Police, the Australian Taxation Office, and the local council about our findings. We were then referred to the Victorian Department of Health, which then told us to go to Safe Food Victoria, an agency created 3 weeks ago. Safe Food Victoria told 7:30, "Victorians have a right to safely consume food and alcohol, and any person or business who seeks to profit off this by breaking the law faces significant fines and prison."

[00:08:45]So, in the European Union, all food and beverage products, and this includes alcohol, are subjected to randomized testing for quality control.

[00:08:54]That's something that could really go about increasing consumer confidence.

[00:08:58]Dr. Eric Cadanosa wants to see tougher penalties for those who manufacture contaminated alcohol.

[00:09:04]>> And when someone spikes your drink, that's a crime. Well, this is technically spiking your drink with a substance that you do not consent to. I think this is a criminal offense.