Begin with what the brand itself publishes
Counterfeits are easiest to catch when you already know what the real thing says about itself. 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. Matching all five is expensive, which is why LA streetwear label copies almost never match all five. Desto Dubb has posted publicly about fakes in a video on his verified Facebook page, so the brand is aware of the problem. Nothing below needs special equipment or a paid authentication service. Read calmly, before you pay: that is the whole exercise.
Six checks, in the order that settles things fastest
In under a minute most questions answer themselves, provided you work through these in sequence. Without touching the garment, the first two checks are done from a listing alone. For the next three you want 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 not a verdict; it is a reason to slow down. At two or more, you are almost certainly not looking at the real garment.
1. The price check
Core prices as of September 2026 at the brand’s own store come to 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. It is not a sale at all; it is a different product. Genuine markdowns do happen at the brand, so a single discounted item proves nothing on its own. A whole catalogue of cough syrup shirts and hoodies priced at a third of retail is the telling thing. Not one $45 tee carrying this wordmark came from the brand.
2. The product-name check
Genuine pieces all have a name that appears in the brand’s own 154-product catalogue. Names spotted on copycat listings, including a Breakfast Of Champions Tee and a Skeleton Hoodie Black, appear nowhere in that catalogue. 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. If you are chasing a particular awful lot of cough syrup hoodie, search the exact product name against the live catalogue before paying. The cleanest evidence of all is a name that does not exist. Checking takes about thirty seconds.
3. The fabric-weight test
The brand publishes weights on its core styles, and those numbers are expensive to replicate. 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. 65% cotton and 35% polyester covers the Dickies pieces, and the boxers are 95% cotton and 5% elastane. A listing that offers only vague words such as premium heavyweight, or a figure that contradicts these, is worth pausing on. Note that many accessories carry no published weight at all, so silence on a pair of socks means nothing. Hold a 16 oz hoodie and it is unmistakably dense and stiff when new.
4. The label test
Named in product copy garment after garment, the yellow woven label is the most consistent marker across the line. On tees, the hem; on the Classic Hoodie, the wearer’s bottom left. Their own hardware sits on other pieces: a custom leather patch on the denim shorts, a logo woven waistband on the boxers. A woven label has visible threads and a dense, even weave, and it is stitched flat and square to the seam. A printed or heat-pressed tag in place of a woven label is a serious warning sign, as is a label in the wrong shade of yellow or in the wrong position. Check the stitching around the label as closely as the label itself.
5. The graphics check
The wordmark is the primary graphic on most pieces, usually as a jumbo screen print across front and back. Most copies trip on the spelling, 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. 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. 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. Once the spelling checks out, look at print registration, edge crispness and whether the ink has cracked before the garment has been worn.
6. The seller test
The safest place to buy 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. Opening hours and trading status 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.
The six checks, side by side
The table below compresses everything above into a form you can scan on a phone. The middle column carries what the brand itself has published as of September 2026, and the right column describes what the copies tend to do instead. Treat the figures as a snapshot rather than a permanent standard, because prices, stock and product names all change. None of these signals is conclusive on its own. Taken together they are reliable, because a convincing forgery would have to match all six at once. Counterfeiters do not go to that trouble.
| 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 |
| Product name | A name that sits in the brand’s 154-product catalogue | Invented names appearing nowhere in it |
| 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 | A printed tag, the wrong shade, the wrong placement |
| The graphics | 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, everything in stock |
Why That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup attracts copies
Three factors make a brand attractive to counterfeiters, and this one has all of them. Running from about $150 to $350 across the line, the price band leaves a wide margin for a cheap copy to undercut. Travelling far beyond the clothing, the name creates demand among people who have never seen a genuine piece. And the core graphic is a line of text, which is the easiest thing in the world to screen print onto a blank. Drops sell through and a large share of size variants sits out of stock at any given time, so scarcity adds pressure. Buyers get pushed toward unfamiliar sellers by that combination, and that is exactly where the copies wait.
If you have already bought one
Recoverable, and worth handling methodically rather than quickly. Run the six checks and note which ones the piece failed, with photographs of the label, the print and the inside seams. Since disputes are decided on documentation, keep the listing, the order confirmation and any messages. Go to 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. 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. Convincing copies are designed to pass at a glance, so do not resell the piece as genuine and do not take it personally.
