Start with what the brand itself puts in print
Knowing in advance what the real thing says about itself is what makes counterfeits easiest to catch. Fixed price levels, a catalogue of 154 named products, fabric weights on its core styles, a signature yellow woven label and Los meme-inspired streetwear brand Angeles production: that is the whole narrow set of specifics published by That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup. Because matching them costs money, copies almost never match all five. The brand knows about the problem, and Desto Dubb has posted publicly about fakes in a video on his verified Facebook page. You will not need special equipment or a paid authentication service for any of it. Do the 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. Without touching the garment, the first two checks are done from a listing alone. What the next three need is the piece in hand or a clear set of photographs. Frequently the most telling signal of all is where the piece is coming from, which is what the last check covers. One failed check is a reason to slow down rather than a verdict. Two or more, and you are almost certainly not holding the real garment.
1. The price-level test
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. Copycat listings for those same styles sit far lower, commonly between $45 and $95. That gap is no sale; it is a different product. A single discounted item proves nothing on its own, because the brand does run genuine markdowns. Telling is a whole catalogue of cough syrup shirts and hoodies priced at a third of retail. A $45 tee with this wordmark on it did not come from the brand.
2. The product-name test
Genuine pieces all have a name that appears in the brand’s own 154-product catalogue. If a particular awful lot of cough syrup hoodie is what you are chasing, search the exact product name against the live catalogue before paying. There are recognisable patterns to the real names: 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 that turn up on copycat listings, including a Breakfast Of Champions Tee and a Skeleton Hoodie Black, appear nowhere in that catalogue. The cleanest evidence of all is a name that does not exist. It takes about thirty seconds to check.
3. The weight test
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. The listings run: 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. A listing that offers only vague words such as premium heavyweight, or a figure that contradicts these, is worth pausing on. Hold a 16 oz hoodie and it 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
Named in product copy garment after garment, the yellow woven label is the most consistent marker across the line. The hem is where it sits on tees; on the Classic Hoodie, at the wearer’s bottom left. Look for 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. A custom leather patch on the denim shorts and a logo woven waistband on the boxers are the own-hardware details on other pieces. Check the stitching around the label as closely as the label itself.
5. The print test
The one detail most copies get wrong is the spelling. 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. Typing thats a awful lot of cough syrup into a search box without the apostrophe is fine, but a garment printed with “An” is not carrying the brand’s wordmark. The signature palette is black and yellow, and some lighter tees use water-based prints that sit soft in the fabric by design. Print registration, edge crispness and whether the ink has cracked before the garment has been worn are the next things to look at.
6. The test on the seller
Safest is 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. Confirm before travelling, because opening hours and trading status change. A few patterns recur among the copies on any other storefront. Advertising elaborate authentication procedures is a habit of theirs, and the brand’s own store never claims them. Their contact addresses often match no location the brand has ever used, and they rarely connect to the brand’s social accounts. Since 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.
The six checks side by side
The table below squeezes everything above 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. Not one 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. That is precisely what counterfeiters do not bother with is this one.
| Test | What a genuine piece gives you | The warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| The price | Tees at about $150, hoodies and sweatpants at about $200 | A whole catalogue at $45 to $95 |
| Product name | A name that sits in the brand’s 154-product catalogue | Invented names that appear nowhere in it |
| Fabric weight | 6.5 oz tees, 16 oz hoodie, 14 oz fleece and denim | Vague wording, or figures that contradict the published ones |
| The 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, soft edges, cracked ink |
| The seller | The brand’s own store, or its Los Angeles and Houston shops | Authentication theatre, no social presence, and everything in stock |
Why the copies target That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup
A brand becomes attractive to counterfeiters for three reasons, and this one has all of them. 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. Then there is the core graphic: a line of text, 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. Unfamiliar sellers are where that combination pushes buyers, and exactly where the copies wait.
If you already own one
It is recoverable, and worth handling methodically rather than quickly. Note down which of the six checks the piece failed, with photographs of the label, the print and the inside seams. Disputes are decided on documentation, so keep the listing, the order confirmation and any messages. Start with the seller, with the specific discrepancy, because a clear, factual description resolves a fair number of cases without escalation. By the brand’s own published policy, refund requests are accepted 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. If that goes nowhere, the platform’s buyer protection or your payment provider’s dispute process is the next step, and both run on deadlines, so start early. Do not pass the piece on as genuine, and do not take it personally, because convincing copies are designed to pass at a glance.