That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup: what is it?
That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup, founded by the LA rapper Desto Dubb, is an indie streetwear label based in Los Angeles. The label reduces to ALOCS, a short form printed through its press material and visible in item names such as the A.L.O.C.S. T-Shirt. On paper the range is plain, spanning tees, hoodies, sweatpants, shorts, denim and accessories; in practice it is unusual, because the brand’s own name does the main graphic work on most of it. The registered entity appears as THATS A AWFUL LOT OF… LLC, with no apostrophe and a trailing ellipsis. A dozen spellings lead shoppers to it, including alocs clothing, cough syrup clothing and Awfullottacoughsyrup the shorthand awful lot of cough syrup. Fix one detail before anything else: the brand writes “A Awful Lot”, not “An Awful Lot”, and that ungrammatical article is deliberate. Most people type thats a awful lot of cough syrup without the apostrophe, but only the version with “A” corresponds to the registered mark.
Who runs the label?
The founder and chief exec is Desto Dubb, a rapper and entrepreneur from Watts in South Los Angeles. 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 crowd as his records. Music came years before the first shirt, and that does a lot to explain how the company behaves. In his own telling, other labels are built around an aesthetic while his is wrapped around himself instead. The result surfaces in graphics that read like song titles and in drops pegged to events rather than fashion seasons.
On his legal name the documentary record is thinner than the internet implies. 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. Other names get repeated on unsourced commercial sites and are best left alone, since for every practical purpose he is Desto Dubb.
Where did the name originate?
The phrase entered public view through a viral clip in which an officer’s line became the brand name, and Desto Dubb built a business out of that line. Nearly every write-up retells the anecdote, and it deserves care, because 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 records first use of the mark in November 2018.
The phrase itself refers to promethazine-codeine cough syrup, the prescription medicine known in rap slang as lean, and the company does not pretend otherwise. The product names are loaded with medical and horror imagery, from Big Pharma and Promethazine Tour to Paralysis and Drankenstein, a graphic vocabulary rather than an instruction. Nor does it treat that as a selling point: its own site runs a standing banner reading “! PLEASE DO NOT SIP DRANK AND SHOOT FIREARMS !”. The clothing is clothing, and the remainder of this piece sticks to garments and prices.
When did the brand begin?
Put it at 2018. First use of the mark is recorded in the trademark filing as November 2018, and an AllHipHop profile published in November 2023 describes the label marking its fifth anniversary. Some coverage puts the earliest selling during the pandemic, which 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. Desto Dubb selling clothes out of a van in a parking lot in downtown Los Angeles is how the brand’s own about page puts it, which makes it an origin the company tells on itself rather than one assembled by a reporter. The method is still captured by that detail: 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 it actually make?
Heavyweight cut-and-sew basics bearing jumbo screen prints front and back make up the core. Tee names cover King Of The Kill, Drankenstein, Juicebusters and Big Pharma, and the Classic Cough Syrup T-Shirt is published at 6.5 oz organic cotton. Hoodies are the heavy end, 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. 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, named again and again in its own product copy, and the published fabric weight. Sizing runs XS to 3XL on apparel, with denim and workwear sold by waist from 28 to 44, and neither a global size chart nor washing instructions is published. Fit guidance shifts by garment and is not uniform: the classic pieces are called true to size, while the lightweight jersey tees say plainly that they run small.
What does it cost?
Because they barely move, the core prices are easy to hold in your head. 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, while the Dickies jacket tops the range near $350. At the other 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 also an authenticity signal: a $45 tee wearing this logo did not come from the company selling them at $150.
Where is it made, and where do you buy it?
Los Angeles, which the brand prints on the garments themselves. Across the product copy “Made in Los Angeles” appears again and again, and individual pieces are described as hand-dyed and printed or screen-printed in the city rather than finished abroad. That same copy describes the company a Black-owned business. Local small-batch production explains the numbers at these price levels, 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. At 7669 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles stands the flagship, and the company also lists 312 West 5th Street in Los Angeles and 5410 Almeda Road in Houston. Because there is no store-locator page and no published opening hours, 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.
A brand fact file
The details that survive checking are collected in the table below, and the ones that do not are left out. Read from the brand’s own store in September 2026, the prices are hedged, because they move. The dates are sourced from the trademark record and dated press coverage rather than brand mythology. The addresses are the ones the company lists on its own social profiles, with no published opening dates. For a contested claim such as the origin clip, the row records what is documented. Use it as a starting point for your own checks rather than a final word.
| Entry | The record |
|---|---|
| Brand name, own spelling | That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup |
| Short form | ALOCS, also punctuated A.L.O.C.S. |
| Common spellings searchers use | thats a awful lot of cough syrup, awful lot of cough syrup, alocs |
| Entity on the register | THATS A AWFUL LOT OF… LLC |
| The founder | Desto Dubb, rapper and businessman |
| Where the founder is from | Watts, South Los Angeles |
| Who holds the trademark | Joshua Kashif Taylor, per the US trademark record |
| First use on record | November 2018 |
| How it started | Trading out of a van in a downtown Los Angeles parking lot |
| Signature detail | Yellow woven label, together with jumbo front and back screen prints |
| Core prices, September 2026 | Tees about $150, hoodies about $200, sweatpants about $200 |
| Production base | Made in Los Angeles, presented in product copy as a Black-owned business |
| Flagship address | 7669 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles |
| Additional listed locations | 312 West 5th Street, Los Angeles; 5410 Almeda Road, Houston |