China confiscates over 5,000 bottles of booze with… Viagra

Chinese police are probing two distillers from the southwestern Guangxi province who are accused of adding impotence treatment drug Viagra to alcohol in the country's latest food-safety scare.

Guikun Alcohol Plant and Deshun Alcohol Plant in the city of Luizhou added sildenafil – more commonly known as Viagra – into three of their baijiu products, according to Liuzhou Food and Drug Administration. Baijiu is expensive, fiery grain liquor. 

Police confiscated 5,357 bottles of “Viagra liquor,” more than a ton of raw alcohol and a batch of white powder labeled Sildenafil, Xinhua reports. The case is worth 700,000 yuan (almost $113,000).

All the products are reported to have labels praising their health-preserving qualities. However, Viagra is not safe for people with cardiovascular problems; therefore it is banned as a food additive in China.

It is not the first case of adding Viagra into baijiu liquor in China. Last year, a businessman from central China's Hubei Province was detained for the same crime.

Food quality is a key problem for China. According to the South China Morning Post, in June Chinese customs discovered almost $500,000 worth of smuggled meat from US reserves that was more than 40 years old.