Start from what the brand publishes 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 narrow set of specifics That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup publishes. Fakes are easiest to catch when you already know what the alocs pullover hoodie real thing says about itself. Matching all five is expensive, which is why copies almost never manage it. The brand is well aware of the problem, and Desto Dubb has posted publicly about fakes in a video on his verified Facebook page. None of this needs special equipment or a paid authentication service. A reading exercise, done calmly, before you pay, is all it is.
Six checks, in the order that settles things fastest
Take these in sequence and most questions answer themselves in under a minute. The first two checks can be done from a listing alone, without touching the garment. The next three need the piece in hand or a clear set of photographs. The last one is about where the piece is coming from, which is often the most telling signal of all. A single failed check is a reason to slow down rather than a verdict. At two or more, you are almost certainly not looking at the real garment.
1. The price-level test
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. Copycat listings of the same styles cluster far lower, commonly between $45 and $95. A gap like that is no sale: it is a different product. The telling signal 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 carrying this wordmark did not come from the brand.
2. The name test
Genuine pieces all have a name that appears in the brand’s own 154-product catalogue. Search the exact product name against the live catalogue before paying, if you are chasing a particular awful lot of cough syrup hoodie. 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 that turn up on copycat listings, including a Breakfast Of Champions Tee and a Skeleton Hoodie Black, appear nowhere in that catalogue. A name that does not exist is the cleanest evidence there is. About thirty seconds is all it takes to check.
3. The weight test
Weights get published on the core styles, and those numbers are expensive to replicate. The published list runs: 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. Dickies pieces are 65% cotton and 35% polyester, and the boxers are 95% cotton and 5% elastane. Only vague words such as premium heavyweight, or a figure that contradicts these, are worth pausing on. Silence on a pair of socks tells you nothing, because many accessories carry no published weight at all. Hold a 16 oz hoodie and it is unmistakably dense and stiff when new.
4. The label test
Right across the line, the most consistent marker is the yellow woven label, 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. A dense, even weave and visible threads are what a woven label has, and it is stitched flat and square to the seam. Where a woven label belongs, a printed or heat-pressed tag is a serious warning sign, as is a label in the wrong shade of yellow or in the wrong position. Other pieces have their own hardware: a custom leather patch on the denim shorts, a logo woven waistband on the boxers. The stitching that holds the label is worth as close a look as the label itself.
5. The print test
The spelling is the detail most copies get wrong. The wordmark is the primary graphic on most pieces, usually as a jumbo screen print across front and back. The brand writes it with “A”, not “An”, 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 brand’s signature colours are 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 come next, beyond the spelling.
6. The seller check
The safest route 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. On any other storefront, a few patterns recur among the copies. Connections to the brand’s social accounts are rare, 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 with 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
The table below compresses 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. Taken singly, none of these signals is conclusive. Prices, stock and product names all change, so treat the figures as a snapshot rather than a permanent standard. A convincing forgery would have to match all six at once, which is why they are reliable taken together. That is the part counterfeiters do not bother with.
| The check | What the genuine piece shows | Warning signs |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Tees at about $150, hoodies and sweatpants at 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 that appear nowhere in it |
| The fabric weight | 6.5 oz tees, 16 oz hoodie, 14 oz fleece and denim | Vague wording, or figures that contradict the published ones |
| Label | Yellow woven label at tee hem or hoodie bottom left | A printed tag, the wrong shade, the wrong placement |
| Graphics | A jumbo screen print; the slogan spelled with “A” | “An” in the slogan, soft edges, cracked ink |
| Seller | The brand’s own store, or the 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
This one has all three of the things that make a brand attractive to counterfeiters. Demand exists among people who have never seen a genuine piece, because the name travelled far beyond the clothing. A wide margin for a cheap copy to undercut is left by the price band, running from about $150 to $350 across the line. 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. 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. Since 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. Go to the seller first with the specific discrepancy, because a clear, factual description resolves a fair number of cases without escalation. 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. The next step, if that goes nowhere, is the platform’s buyer protection or your payment provider’s dispute process, and both run on deadlines, so start early. Never resell the piece as genuine, and do not take it personally, because convincing copies are designed to pass at a glance.
