AI Scammers Have Infiltrated the Whiskey Market — And There Isn’t a Labubu, Godzilla or Pokémon That’s Safe from the Carnage

Labubu dolls captured the heart of Gen-Z collectomania. Now, their likeness is being replicated into a cascade of shoddy AI-generated whiskey scams. (Photo: ariartmall)

F1 race cars, R2D2, Hogwarts, Yankees hats, Pokémon and Jerry Garcia singing into a microphone — all stamped with a suspiciously glossy Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey logo.

No, these are not the beginnings of an ill-conceived cinematic universe touching down in theaters next summer. These are real product listings for whiskey decanters, hawked in the far reaches of the internet to customers unwilling (or unable) to question why trademarked properties are suddenly flooding the liquor industry hand in hand with brands like Crown Royal and Blanton’s Bourbon.

The alcohol market is being drowned in AI slop. And, like much else in the post-ChatGPT internet hellscape, there’s no end in sight.

The tip of the iceberg begins with Google search data. Over the past few months, we began to notice a trend in the top-queried results for the whiskey category. Week after week, users were logging onto their computers in search of a similar combination of keywords. In April, the fastest-rising result was “Godzilla Whiskey Decanter”; in May, it was “Jaws 50th Anniversary Whiskey Decanter.” Taken individually, nothing that should raise any eyebrows. It’s not unheard of for liquor brands to recruit the likeness of pop culture icons — in fact, both Godzilla and Jaws have done exactly that for officially endorsed releases in years past. Another day, another co-branded dollar.

Trends took an unlikely turn in June when the fastest-rising result emerged as “Toothless Whiskey Decanter.” Toothless is the scaly star of DreamWorks’ “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise, recently expanded upon with a live-action remake that followed in the footsteps of a book series, three animated films and a TV show. His cuddly green eyes have grossed well over a billion dollars at the international box office. Toothless enjoys eating fish just as much as he loves playful romps in the grass. Toothless does not know what whiskey is.

So what did thousands of users find when they searched for the adorable monster’s first alcohol venture? A handful of AI-generated product pages plucked straight from the uncanny valley. As it turns out, Toothless is available in not one but six varieties, each decorated with a different whiskey brand name ranging from Four Roses to Maker’s Mark. Zoom in close enough, and you’ll find that the lettering doesn’t always quite add up, especially for cursive-font logos like Crown Royal.

Bottles cost anywhere from $35 to $50, depending on which retailer Google bumps up first.

AI-generated bottles depicting Toothless the Dragon. Brand names include Crown Royal, Blanton’s and Jack Daniel’s. (Photos: Degeshop)

These decanters are everywhere. The sludge farm for whiskey decanter deepfakes spans dozens of websites and hundreds of product pages, each reimagining a grab bag of search terms into dubious bottle concepts that could be yours at the click of a button. Some recreate pop culture staples like Mike Myers and Pink Floyd, while others adopt a more generic tilt. Dog lovers have their pick of the litter from an assortment of chihuahua, bulldog and corgi possibilities. If you’ve ever driven a vehicle, rest assured that AI bottles now come in the form of police cars, firetrucks, semitrucks and Jeeps. There are even a handful of NSFW options, designed with the same trashy sensibility as a tourist shirt that defines “F.B.I.” as “Female Body Inspector.”

And then there are the odd similarities. Though there’s an unfathomable number of landing pages advertising these products across the internet, nearly all of them use the same handful of AI-generated images. Once you’ve seen one Toothless whiskey decanter, you’ve seen them all, complete with their misspelled flourishes and glowing lime-green eyes. Though this could be chalked up to copy-and-paste laziness, the other possibility is that various retailers are being operated from the same source.

Websites running the scam don’t put in much effort to dispel the idea. The domain names of the usual suspects — Lukalula, Yumilon, Kinginin and Heeyman — all sound like they were generated by a robot approximating the look and feel of human language. The same could be said for the product descriptions, which ring about as hollow as an empty tin can. (According to one blurb, “this small series of artworks is a collaboration of upgraded skills of glass artistry.”)

The product image for a Gundam 46th Anniversary whiskey decanter, one of several break-out Google searches in May. (Photo: Degeshop)

Suffice it to say that bad grammar doesn’t matter on social media. For every top-trending whiskey decanter search over the past few months, we were able to trace the breadcrumbs back to a single viral post that ignited interest for each.

For Toothless, it was a TikTok that raked in over one million views and 170,000 likes. For Godzilla, it was a Facebook ad with over 16,000 likes and nearly 5,000 shares. A few commenters detected that something was off; most did not. One user remarked, “Now listen I don’t drink….. However the temptation to get this is strong.”

Another chimed in, “Just hope the bottle is made in the U.S.!”

It’s easy to write this off as a boilerplate scam targeting customers who can’t read between the lines. But recent trends in the alcohol industry have blurred the boundaries to the point of illegibility. Since 2020, companies have fallen head over heels for co-branded alcohol products, often launched in collaboration with nostalgic, family-friendly properties. Customers can now purchase everything from SunnyD Vodka Seltzer to Welch’s Craft Cocktails. Trending franchises of the day are just as ripe for the picking. Earlier this year, Marvel fans were blessed with a limited-edition Aviation Gin bottling embossed with the Deadpool superhero logo. Even Batman has his own officially endorsed single malt scotch whisky. According to a press release, it tastes like candy bracelets, sweet cream, buttermints and lemon zest.

If a collaboration between Rocket Pop and Twisted Tea can make it to shelves despite some obvious moral hiccups, is a collaboration between “How to Train Your Dragon” and Jack Daniel’s really all that far-fetched?

Beyond the “Buy Now”

(Photos: Heeyman, Reddit)

Google Trends data suggests that these bottles are being purchased, potentially in the hundreds, if not thousands. However, customer feedback is nigh impossible to come by. Most AI retailers don’t include a section for reviews under their product listings. Those that do find their comments suspiciously devoid of engagement.

A handful of posts on platforms like Reddit paint a fuller picture. In one, a side-by-side comparison of the Godzilla bottle (as advertised on Facebook) and the puny Godzilla shot glass (as delivered in the mail) reveals some, shall we say, interesting dissimilarities. Razor-sharp fangs morphed into round globs of barely distinct glass. Beady eyes that look like they were applied with the single dab of a paintbrush. A soft amber glow replaced by the hard reality of disappointment.

Users on review platforms like TrustPilot echo similar complaints ad nauseam. A sea of one-star ratings accuses Kinginin, perhaps the most prolific name in the AI-generated decanter scheme, of overcharging for “complete misrepresentations” of their products. Upon discovering that their $50 bottle was a cheap, 4-inch imitation, one user says they were offered a $14 refund. Others say that their shipments never arrived, and that repeated requests for a refund went unanswered. In another tale, a customer says they finally got through to the Kinginin team, only to be asked for more money to restore a failed delivery.

On the Subreddit devoted to “Gundam,” multiple users posted links and images of Gundam 46th Anniversary whiskey decanters, which are “available” on several websites and may be ordered in Crown Royal or Jack Daniel’s styles.  One user, u/ooogaboooga42, says they ordered a bottle for a friend’s birthday from Joyharbor, a website that has since shut down, but had their doubts about the product’s legitimacy after reading Reddit comments suggesting the image was AI-generated.

u/ooogaboooga42 reached out about the order, asking if they had been scammed, and shared a screenshot of an emailed response they received June 19 from the customer support team: “Please rest assured that our 46th Gundam Anniversary whiskey bottle is a legitimate, officially crafted collectible product. We are a reputable business, and all our items are carefully sourced, packed, and shipped with great attention to quality and authenticity.”

The email even specified that the bottle shipped would be made from high-quality materials and be “filled with standard whisky.”

A week later, u/ooogaboooga42 posted an update: “Email has gone dark and they sent this bad boy [an email saying “Your shipping order status has been updates”] which sent me to a f—ing download link so safe to say I was successfully scammed which sucks because it was supposed to be birthday presents 😒”.

Multiple other users in the same thread reported similar experiences, having ordered the decanter from Joyharbor prior to its disappearance from the web. “I bought this too and the email address no longer works. I disputed the charge with my bank and they credited me back right away,” wrote one user.

On a separate thread regarding a similar topic, a Redditor reported having bought a Captain America shield-themed decanter: “It was totally a bait and switch. Might as well have been a glass bottle with a shield sticker on one side,” they wrote.

One Redditor, however, ordered a “JAWS”-themed decanter and reported that they were “quite pleased with the result.” You can see below for the images, but here’s a summary: the decanter arrived and is real, and yet there are some very clear differences between reality and how it was presented online. Most trivial: The real version had no eyes. It’s also clear, however, that the website — while it did ship a real product — used AI and the likeness of Jack Daniel’s to make the product look much better than it is: better crafted, full of whiskey and, of course, related to Jack Daniel’s, which it actually is not, in any way shape or form.

While the Redditor may say they’re satisfied, they certainly didn’t get what they ordered. Another user on Reddit who ordered the same decanter wrote: “Mine just arrived……save your $$. This thing is very little and very generic. They tricked us into buying this thing. Some one made a quick buck.”

A common thread that persists across many of these complaints is size. Though a handful of websites clarify that their products are as small as six by eight centimeters, many do not. Whether or not customers read the fine text, the images used to advertise decanters are riddled with misleading cues, often including an AI-generated bottle or glass in the background to provide a false sense of scale. One of the most common techniques is to generate the bottle on a fake bar counter surrounded by shelves, stools and barrels, all of which add to the impression that the advertised product is as big — if not vastly bigger — than a standard 750-milliliter liquor bottle. Instead, these are small, hand-held decanters that look drastically different than their images suggest.

Every layer of the scam is pockmarked by complete and total illegality. Misleading advertising, undelivered orders and an unwillingness to adhere to even the most unambiguous of trademark laws.

We reached out to two of the liquor brands most prominently featured in the racket. Neither was willing to provide public comment on the widespread misuse of their name and likeness. However, in each email, we included a link to a retailer responsible for dozens of trademark violations. Within days of contacting the brands, all mentions of recognizable whiskey distillers were scrubbed from the site’s images. It was as if the AI-decanters had been acid-washed, reduced to a silhouette with no label. Nonetheless, several of the bottles are still being advertised with corks that pay not-so-subtle homage to their original form.

These AI-generated bottles aren’t limited to fringe websites with sketchy names. In the course of our research, we happened upon several fictitious products listed by third-party retailers on sites like Walmart and Amazon. We contacted Walmart with concerns about an especially obvious rip-off — a smirking turtle throwing up a middle finger, complete with a glowing Jack Daniel’s logo etched on its stomach. The company moved quickly to remove the retailer from its platform.

“Like many retailers, we operate an online marketplace in the U.S. that allows independent sellers to list items through our eCommerce platform,” representatives from Walmart said in an email statement. “The item in question was listed by a  third-party seller and has been removed from our site for violating our prohibited products policy. We have clear guidelines in place, and when items are identified as not meeting our standards or requirements, they are promptly removed and remain blocked from the site. We take these matters seriously and are committed to maintaining a trusted and respectful experience for our customers and communities.”

Elsewhere, the mischievous turtle is still up for grabs to anyone willing to shell out 50 bucks. And therein lies the beating heart of the issue.

Even if brands were to deploy cease-and-desist orders day and night, there will always be a bad actor with access to ChatGPT and an endless supply of TikTok trends fit for reimagining into shoddy gotcha scams. Take down one website, and three more will emerge in its place. It’s a Sisyphean task. Except the mythmaker has been mysteriously misspelled as “sysiphys,” he’s got one too many fingers, and that boulder he was pushing up the hill was replaced by a mishapen Labubu doll with a Crown Royal trademark where its belly button should be.

The era of AI slop appears to be here to stay, and it’s spread to the world of whiskey.