What on earth is That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup?
That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup, launched by rapper Desto Dubb, is a self-owned clothing label based in Los Angeles. ALOCS is the shorthand it answers to, turning up both in its own press material and in garment names such as the A.L.O.C.S. T-Shirt. The range is conventional on paper, taking in tees, hoodies, sweatpants, shorts, denim and accessories, ALOCS and unusual in practice, since the brand’s own name is the main graphic on most of it. People come at it through a dozen spellings, including alocs clothing, cough syrup clothing and the shorthand awful lot of cough syrup. The filed entity reads THATS A AWFUL LOT OF… LLC, with no apostrophe and a trailing ellipsis. One detail is worth settling first: the brand writes “A Awful Lot”, not “An Awful Lot”, and the ungrammatical article is deliberate. Most people type thats a awful lot of cough syrup without the apostrophe, but only the version with “A” matches the registered mark.
Who is behind it?
The founder and chief exec is Desto Dubb, a rapper and entrepreneur from Watts in South Los Angeles. He was making records years before he sold a shirt, which explains much of how the company conducts itself. What you are looking at is not a design studio with a rapper attached as a face, but a rapper’s business, steered from the same circle as his records. In his own framing, other labels are built around an aesthetic while his is wrapped around himself instead. You catch the result in graphics that read like song titles and in drops keyed to events rather than fashion seasons.
Two things agree: the United States trademark for the phrase is registered to Joshua Kashif Taylor, and posts on the brand’s own blog carry a matching byline. The internet implies more about his legal name than the record carries, and that record is light. Unsourced commercial sites circulate other names, and those are best left alone, because for every practical purpose he is Desto Dubb.
How did the name come about?
The public came across the phrase through a viral clip in which an officer’s line became the brand name, and Desto Dubb made that line into a business. The anecdote shows up in nearly every write-up, and it deserves care: material online claims the clip was staged, and no primary transcript settles it. The commercial outcome is what is documented, rather than the encounter itself, and the trademark record lists first use of the mark in November 2018.
What the phrase refers to is promethazine-codeine cough syrup, the prescription medicine known in rap slang as lean, and the company does not pretend otherwise. The product names trade in medical and horror imagery, from Big Pharma and Promethazine Tour to Paralysis and Drankenstein, a graphic vocabulary rather than an instruction. It also declines to treat that as a selling point, and its own site carries a standing banner reading “! PLEASE DO NOT SIP DRANK AND SHOOT FIREARMS !”. The clothing is clothing, and the remainder of this piece covers garments and prices.
When did the label start?
Use 2018. Two records agree: the trademark filing gives first use of the mark in November 2018, and an AllHipHop profile published in November 2023 describes the label marking its fifth anniversary. There is coverage placing the earliest selling during the pandemic, but that conflicts with both markers, and the filing and the anniversary piece are the stronger pair. Having two independent pointers to a single year is more than most young streetwear brands can muster.
Literally, it started with a van. On its own about page the brand tells of Desto Dubb selling clothes out of a van in a parking lot in downtown Los Angeles, an origin it tells on itself rather than one assembled by a reporter. That detail still defines the method: small batches, direct contact with buyers, and drops announced through social accounts instead of wholesale calendars. By 2026 there is an online store and physical retail, and even so the rhythm still looks closer to a van than a department store, with fresh batches landing every week or two.
What does the brand actually sell?
At the core sit heavyweight cut-and-sew basics carrying jumbo screen prints front and back. Hoodies sit at the heavy end, with the Classic Cough Syrup Hoodie listed at 16 oz organic cotton and hand-dyed in Los Angeles, while sweatpants use a 14 oz cotton and recycled polyester fleece. Names like King Of The Kill, Drankenstein, Juicebusters and Big Pharma cover the tees, while the Classic Cough Syrup T-Shirt is published at 6.5 oz organic cotton. The denim side is deliberately thin, since the Double Cup Cargo Shorts, a 14 oz garment-dyed cargo short with double-layer back pockets, is the only piece in that collection in 2026.
Better than any graphic, two details identify the brand, namely the signature yellow woven label, repeated again and again in its own product copy, and the published fabric weight. Fit guidance is set per garment and is not uniform, since the classic pieces are called true to size while the lightweight jersey tees say plainly that they run small. Apparel covers XS to 3XL, denim and workwear sell by waist from 28 to 44, and neither a global size chart nor washing instructions is published.
What are the prices?
The core prices are easy to hold in your head because they barely move. Reading the brand’s own store as of September 2026, a tee is about $150, a hoodie about $200 and sweatpants about $200. Denim shorts sit near $150, puffer jackets between roughly $200 and $250, belts and Dickies trousers around $250, and the Dickies jacket tops the range near $350. At the cheaper end a bandana runs about $25, socks and boxers fall in the $50 to $70 band, and women’s pieces roughly $48 to $160.
Prices and stock in streetwear change constantly, and that ladder is best treated as a shape rather than a quote. The band places cough syrup clothing at the upper end of independent streetwear, well above mall-tier graphic brands and far below European luxury houses. It is likewise an authenticity signal: a $45 tee wearing this logo did not come from the company selling them at $150.
Where is it produced, and where can you buy it?
Los Angeles, and the brand says so on the garments themselves. The product copy hammers “Made in Los Angeles”, with individual pieces described as hand-dyed and printed or screen-printed in the city rather than finished abroad. A Black-owned business is how the same copy describes the company. Given local small-batch production, the numbers at these price levels add up, because a 16 oz cotton hoodie made here was never going to be a $60 garment.
Its own online store runs alongside a small number of physical locations. The flagship is at 7669 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, and it also lists 312 West 5th Street in Los Angeles and 5410 Almeda Road in Houston. There is no store-locator page and no published opening hours, so those addresses are worth confirming before travelling. Anything else claiming to be an outlet is best judged on the garment: the yellow woven label, the published fabric weight, the real price level, and whether the product name appears in the brand’s own catalogue.
The brand fact file
The details that survive checking are collected in the table below, and the ones that do not are left out. Dates come from the trademark record and dated press coverage rather than brand mythology. Read from the brand’s own store in September 2026, the prices are hedged, because they move. Those addresses are the ones the company lists on its own social profiles, and no opening dates are published. For a contested claim such as the origin clip, the row records what is documented. Treat it as a starting point for your own checks rather than a final word.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand name, as the brand spells it | That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup |
| Abbreviated form | ALOCS, also written A.L.O.C.S. |
| Spellings people commonly type | thats a awful lot of cough syrup, awful lot of cough syrup, alocs |
| The legal entity | THATS A AWFUL LOT OF… LLC |
| Who founded it | Desto Dubb, rapper and entrepreneur |
| Founder’s home | Watts, South Los Angeles |
| Owner of record on the trademark | Joshua Kashif Taylor, as listed in the US trademark record |
| First use on record | November 2018 |
| How it began | Sales from a van in a downtown Los Angeles parking lot |
| The telltale detail | Yellow woven label, together with jumbo front and back screen prints |
| The core price band, September 2026 | Tees about $150, hoodies about $200, sweatpants about $200 |
| Where it is made | Made in Los Angeles, presented in product copy as a Black-owned business |
| Flagship location | 7669 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles |
| Other listed locations | 312 West 5th Street, Los Angeles; 5410 Almeda Road, Houston |