The Price of XO: An Unforgettable Airport Meltdown in Beijing

The image of a vast, bustling airport, with planes lining up for departure, sets the scene for countless travel stories – but few are as memorable, or as cautionary, as this one. In 2015, Beijing’s airport witnessed an incident that perfectly illustrates the often-frustrating intersection of personal possessions, airport security, and questionable decision-making.

The story goes that a woman, attempting to board her flight, was informed by security that her full bottle of Rémy Martin XO cognac could not be carried through. Faced with the choice of surrendering her expensive spirit or finding another solution, she made a rather extraordinary decision: she chugged the entire bottle on the spot.

What followed, predictably, was a rapid descent into severe intoxication. Having successfully “saved” her cognac from the clutches of airport security, she then found herself facing a new, self-imposed barrier: she was deemed too drunk to fly. The very flight she intended to take departed without her, leaving her to deal with the consequences of her hasty decision.

This anecdote serves as a humorous, yet stark, reminder of airport rules and the sometimes-extreme lengths people will go to circumvent them. It highlights the importance of checking liquid restrictions before arriving at security and, perhaps more importantly, the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption, especially when travel plans are involved. While her intentions might have been to avoid waste, the outcome was an expensive lesson learned, missing a flight, and likely a very severe hangover.