Start from what the brand publishes about itself
Counterfeits are easiest to spot when you already know what the real thing says about itself. Fixed price levels, a catalogue of 154 named products, fabric weights on its core styles, a signature yellow woven label and Los Angeles production: that is the whole narrow set of specifics published by That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup. Matching all five costs money, which is why copies almost never manage it. Awareness is not the issue: Desto Dubb has posted publicly about fakes in a video on his verified Facebook page. You do not need special equipment or a paid authentication Desto Dubb’s Awful Lot of Cough Syrup service for any of it. Reading, essentially, done calmly, before you pay, is all it is.
Six checks, in the fastest order to settle it
In under a minute most questions answer themselves, provided you go through these in sequence. The first two checks are done from a listing alone, 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 sit far lower, commonly between $45 and $95. That gap is not a sale; it is a different product. Genuine markdowns do happen at the brand, so a single discounted item proves nothing on its own. The telling signal is a whole catalogue of cough syrup shirts and hoodies priced at a third of retail. Not one $45 tee carrying this wordmark came from the brand.
2. The product-name check
Each genuine piece has a name that appears in the brand’s own 154-product catalogue. Real names run to 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. If you are chasing a particular awful lot of cough syrup hoodie, search the exact product name against the live catalogue before paying. A name that does not exist is the cleanest evidence there is. About thirty seconds is all it takes to check.
3. The fabric-weight test
The brand publishes weights on its core styles, and those numbers are expensive to replicate. Classic tees are listed 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. On the Dickies pieces it is 65% cotton and 35% polyester, and the boxers are 95% cotton and 5% elastane. A listing offering only vague words such as premium heavyweight, or a figure that contradicts these, is worth pausing on. In hand, a 16 oz hoodie is unmistakably dense and stiff when new. Silence on a pair of socks means nothing, because many accessories carry no published weight at all.
4. The label test
The yellow woven label is the most consistent marker across the line, named in product copy garment after garment. On tees the label sits at the hem; on the Classic Hoodie it sits at the wearer’s bottom left. Expect visible threads and a dense, even weave on a woven label, stitched flat and square to the seam. Treat a printed or heat-pressed tag where a woven label belongs as a serious warning sign, and so 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. Check the stitching around the label as closely as the label itself.
5. The print test
Spelling is the detail most copies get wrong. Most pieces lead with the wordmark, usually as a jumbo screen print across front and back. It is written with “A”, not “An”, by the brand, 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. Black and yellow make up the brand’s signature colours, and some lighter tees use water-based prints that sit soft in the fabric by design. Beyond the spelling, look at print registration, edge crispness and whether the ink has cracked before the garment has been worn.
6. The test on the seller
The brand’s own online store, or one of its confirmed physical shops, is the safest route: 7669 Melrose Ave and 312 W 5th St in Los Angeles, and 5410 Almeda Rd in Houston. Confirm before travelling, because opening hours and trading status change. On any other storefront, a few patterns recur among the copies. Because the real store regularly sells through a large share of its size variants, a full catalogue of alocs clothing showing every size in stock is itself unusual. Advertising elaborate authentication procedures is a habit of theirs, and the brand’s own store never claims them. They seldom connect to the brand’s social accounts, and their contact addresses often match no location the brand has ever used.
All six checks side by side
The table below squeezes everything above into a form you can scan on a phone. The middle column describes what the brand itself has published as of September 2026, and the right column describes what the copies tend to do instead. Prices, stock and product names do all change, so treat the figures as a snapshot rather than a permanent standard. No single signal here settles it on its own. Reliability comes from taking them together, because a convincing forgery would have to match all six at once. That is the part counterfeiters do not bother with.
| The check | What a genuine piece gives you | The warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Tees about $150, hoodies and sweatpants about $200 | A whole catalogue priced $45 to $95 |
| The product name | A name that sits in the brand’s 154-product catalogue | Invented names appearing 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 | Yellow woven label at tee hem or hoodie bottom left | Printed tag, wrong shade, wrong placement |
| The graphics | Jumbo screen print; the slogan spelled with “A” | “An” in the slogan, plus soft edges and cracked ink |
| The seller | The brand’s own store, or its Los Angeles and Houston shops | Authentication theatre, no social presence, everything in stock |
Why the copies target That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup
This one has all three of the things that draw counterfeiters to a brand. Demand exists among people who have never seen a genuine piece, because the name travelled far beyond the clothing. The price band, running from about $150 to $350 across the line, 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. Pressure comes from scarcity too, since drops sell through and a large share of size variants sits out of stock at any given time. That combination pushes buyers toward unfamiliar sellers, which is exactly where the copies wait.
If you already bought one
This is recoverable, and it is worth handling methodically rather than quickly. Because disputes are decided on documentation, keep the listing, the order confirmation and any messages. With photographs of the label, the print and the inside seams, run the six checks and write down which ones the piece failed. Contact the seller first with the specific discrepancy, because a clear, factual description resolves a fair number of cases without escalation. Should that go 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 pass the piece on as genuine, and do not take it personally, because convincing copies are designed to pass at a glance.