Begin with what the brand itself publishes
Knowing what the real thing says about itself is what makes counterfeits easiest to catch. That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup publishes a narrow set of specifics: fixed price levels, a catalogue of 154 named products, fabric weights on its core styles, a signature yellow woven label and Los Angeles production. Because matching them costs money, copies almost never match all five. Desto Dubb has posted publicly about fakes in a video on his verified Facebook page, so the problem is known to the brand. You will not need special equipment or a paid authentication service for any of it. Do the alocs tee reading calmly, before you pay: that is the whole exercise.
Six checks, in the order that settles it fastest
Most questions answer themselves in under a minute if you take these in sequence. A listing alone carries the first two checks, without touching the garment. For the next three you need the piece in hand or a clear set of photographs. Often the most telling signal of all is where the piece is coming from, which is what the last check covers. One failed check does not settle it; it is a reason to slow down. Two or more, and you are almost certainly not looking at the real garment.
1. The price check
Core prices at the brand’s own store as of September 2026 are about $150 for a tee and about $200 for a hoodie or sweatpants, and these change over time. For the same styles, copycat listings cluster far lower, commonly between $45 and $95. That gap is not a sale; it is a different product. What tells you something is a whole catalogue of cough syrup shirts and hoodies priced at a third of retail. A single discounted item proves nothing on its own, because the brand does run genuine markdowns. A $45 tee with this wordmark on it did not come from the brand.
2. The product-name check
Every genuine piece carries a name that appears in the brand’s own 154-product catalogue. After a particular awful lot of cough syrup hoodie? Search the exact product name against the live catalogue before paying. Real names follow recognisable patterns: the Classic Cough Syrup T-Shirt and Hoodie, the Double Cup Cargo Shorts, the Awful Lot Of Stincs capsule, and medical or horror references such as Big Pharma, Drankenstein and King Of The Kill. Names seen on copycat listings, including a Breakfast Of Champions Tee and a Skeleton Hoodie Black, appear nowhere in that catalogue. The clearest evidence of all is a name that does not exist. About thirty seconds is all it takes to check.
3. The fabric-weight check
Weights are published on the core styles, and those numbers are expensive to replicate. 65% cotton and 35% polyester covers the Dickies pieces, and the boxers are 95% cotton and 5% elastane. What is published is Classic tees at 6.5 oz 100% organic cotton, the Classic Hoodie at 16 oz 100% organic cotton, the Classic Sweatpants at 14 oz fleece of 80% cotton and 20% recycled polyester, and the Double Cup Cargo Shorts at 14 oz denim. Vague words such as premium heavyweight and nothing more, or a figure that contradicts these, make a listing worth pausing on. Note that many accessories carry no published weight at all, so silence on a pair of socks means nothing. In the hand, a 16 oz hoodie is unmistakably dense and stiff when new.
4. The label check
The yellow woven label is the line’s most consistent marker, named in product copy garment after garment. The hem is where it sits on tees; on the Classic Hoodie, at the wearer’s bottom left. Visible threads and a dense, even weave are what a woven label has, and it is stitched flat and square to the seam. A printed or heat-pressed tag where a woven label belongs is a serious warning sign, as is a label in the wrong shade of yellow or in the wrong position. Their own hardware sits on other pieces: a custom leather patch on the denim shorts, a logo woven waistband on the boxers. Give the stitching that surrounds the label the same attention as the label itself.
5. The graphics check
On most pieces the primary graphic is the wordmark, usually as a jumbo screen print across front and back. Most copies get the spelling wrong, and that is the detail to watch. With “A”, not “An”, is how the brand writes it, and that is deliberate and is how the trademark is registered. Plenty of searchers type thats a awful lot of cough syrup into a search box without the apostrophe, which is fine, but a garment printed with “An” is not carrying the brand’s wordmark. Aside from the spelling, look at print registration, edge crispness and whether the ink has cracked before the garment has been worn. The brand’s signature colours are black and yellow, and some lighter tees use water-based prints that sit soft in the fabric by design.
6. The test on the seller
Buy safest from the brand’s own online store or one of its confirmed physical shops: 7669 Melrose Ave and 312 W 5th St in Los Angeles, and 5410 Almeda Rd in Houston. Opening hours and trading status do change, so confirm before travelling. Elsewhere, a few patterns recur among the copies. They seldom connect to the brand’s social accounts, and their contact addresses often match no location the brand has ever used. Elaborate authentication procedures that the brand’s own store never claims get advertised. A full catalogue of alocs clothing showing every size in stock is itself unusual, since the real store regularly sells through a large share of its size variants.
All six checks side by side
Below, everything above is compressed into a form you can scan on a phone. The middle column sets out what the brand itself has published as of September 2026, and the right column describes what the copies tend to do instead. None of these signals is conclusive on its own. Treat the figures as a snapshot rather than a permanent standard, because prices, stock and product names all change. A convincing forgery would have to match all six at once, which is what makes them reliable together. Counterfeiters do not bother with that part.
| Test | What the genuine piece shows | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| The price | Tees at about $150, hoodies and sweatpants at about $200 | A full catalogue at $45 to $95 |
| The product name | A name from the brand’s 154-product catalogue | Made-up names that appear nowhere in it |
| The fabric weight | 6.5 oz tees, 16 oz hoodie, 14 oz fleece and denim | Vague wording, or figures contradicting the published ones |
| Label | A yellow woven label at tee hem or hoodie bottom left | A printed tag, the wrong shade, the wrong placement |
| The graphics | A jumbo screen print; the slogan spelled with “A” | “An” in the slogan, plus soft edges and cracked ink |
| Seller | The brand’s own store, or its Los Angeles and Houston shops | Authentication theatre, no social presence, and everything in stock |
Why That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup attracts copies
A brand becomes attractive to counterfeiters for three reasons, and this one has all of them. Having travelled far beyond the clothing, the name leaves demand among people who have never seen a genuine piece. Running from about $150 to $350 across the line, the price band leaves a wide margin for a cheap copy to undercut. And the core graphic is a line of text, which is the easiest thing in the world to screen print onto a blank. Scarcity piles on pressure, because drops sell through and a large share of size variants sits out of stock at any given time. Buyers get pushed toward unfamiliar sellers by that combination, and that is exactly where the copies wait.
If you have already bought one
This is recoverable, and worth handling methodically rather than quickly. Keep the listing, the order confirmation and any messages, since disputes are decided on documentation. With photographs of the label, the print and the inside seams, run the six checks and write down which ones the piece failed. Start with the seller, with the specific discrepancy, because a clear, factual description resolves a fair number of cases without escalation. Where that goes nowhere, the next step, is the platform’s buyer protection or your payment provider’s dispute process, and both run on deadlines, so start early. The brand’s own published policy accepts refund requests within a month of purchase with return shipping paid by the customer, but that applies to its own store and not to a third party. Do not resell the piece as genuine, and do not take it to heart, because convincing copies are designed to pass at a glance.