ALOCS Shorts Style Guide Cost and Value

That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup: what is it exactly?

That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup, launched by the LA rapper Desto Dubb, is a self-owned streetwear label planted in Los Angeles. It abbreviates itself to ALOCS, a short form used in the press material and in garment names such as the A.L.O.C.S. T-Shirt. On paper the range is conventional, spanning tees, hoodies, sweatpants, shorts, denim and accessories; in practice it is odd, because the brand’s own name is the main graphic on most of it. A dozen different spellings get shoppers there, including alocs clothing, cough syrup clothing and the shorthand awful lot of cough buy here syrup. Registered as THATS A AWFUL LOT OF… LLC, the legal entity has no apostrophe and a trailing ellipsis. One detail is worth getting straight first: the brand writes “A Awful Lot”, not “An Awful Lot”, and the ungrammatical article is deliberate. It is standard to type thats a awful lot of cough syrup without the apostrophe, yet only the version with “A” corresponds to the registered mark.

Who runs the label?

Desto Dubb, a rapper and entrepreneur from Watts in South Los Angeles, is the founder and the chief executive. This is not a design studio with a rapper attached as a face; it is a rapper’s business, operated from the same orbit as his records. He had been putting out records for years before he sold a shirt, which explains much of how the company operates. In his own telling, other labels are built around an aesthetic while his is wrapped around himself instead. The result shows in graphics that read like song titles and in drops keyed to events rather than fashion seasons.

Joshua Kashif Taylor is the named owner on the United States trademark for the phrase, and posts on the brand’s own blog carry a matching byline. On his legal name the documentary record is thinner than the internet implies. Other names do the rounds on unsourced commercial sites and are best left alone, since for every practical purpose he is Desto Dubb.

How did the name come about?

A viral clip put the phrase in front of the public, an officer’s line became the brand name, and Desto Dubb built a business out of that line. The anecdote turns up in nearly every write-up, and it deserves care, since 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. It stops short of treating that as a selling point, and its own site carries a standing banner reading “! PLEASE DO NOT SIP DRANK AND SHOOT FIREARMS !”. Medical and horror imagery threads through the product names, from Big Pharma and Promethazine Tour to Paralysis and Drankenstein, and it works as a graphic vocabulary rather than an instruction. Clothing is clothing, and what follows here is about garments and prices.

What year did it start?

The year to use is 2018. 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. Some coverage dates the earliest selling to the pandemic, which conflicts with both markers; the filing and the anniversary piece are the stronger pair. Most young streetwear brands cannot manage two independent pointers to one year.

Literally, it started with a van. The brand’s own about page has Desto Dubb selling clothes out of a van in a parking lot in downtown Los Angeles, which is the origin it tells on itself rather than one assembled by a reporter. The method is still described by that detail: small batches, direct contact with buyers, and drops announced through social accounts instead of wholesale calendars. The company runs an online store and physical retail by 2026, but the rhythm still looks closer to a van than a department store, with fresh batches landing every week or two.

What is actually on the rail?

The core is heavyweight cut-and-sew basics bearing jumbo screen prints front and back. The heavy end is hoodies: the Classic Cough Syrup Hoodie is listed at 16 oz organic cotton and hand-dyed in Los Angeles, and sweatpants use a 14 oz cotton and recycled polyester fleece. Names like King Of The Kill, Drankenstein, Juicebusters and Big Pharma run across 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.

The brand is pinned down less by any graphic than by two details: the signature yellow woven label, repeated again and again in its own product copy, and the published fabric weight. Apparel spans XS to 3XL, denim and workwear sell by waist from 28 to 44, and neither a global size chart nor washing instructions is published. Set per garment, fit guidance is not uniform, because the classic pieces are called true to size while the lightweight jersey tees say plainly that they run small.

What do the clothes cost?

Easy to hold in your head, the core prices move very little. As of September 2026, a tee is about $150 at the brand’s own store, a hoodie about $200 and sweatpants about $200. Near $150 buys denim shorts, puffer jackets run between roughly $200 and $250, belts and Dickies trousers around $250, and the Dickies jacket tops the range near $350. The other end offers a bandana at about $25, socks and boxers in the $50 to $70 band, and women’s pieces roughly $48 to $160.

Because streetwear prices and stock change constantly, take that ladder as a shape rather than a quote. Cough syrup clothing comes out at the upper end of independent streetwear on that band, well above mall-tier graphic brands and far below European luxury houses. It amounts to 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, a fact the brand puts on the garments themselves. Product copy repeats “Made in Los Angeles”, 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. At these price levels local small-batch production explains the numbers, since 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. 7669 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles is the flagship, and the company 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 that calls itself an outlet is best judged on the garment, meaning 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

Below, the table gathers the details that survive checking and leaves out the ones that do not. The prices were read from the brand’s own store in September 2026 and are hedged, since they move. Dates come 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. Where a claim is contested, 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.