Contamination?

Mkay, I just bottled off a "brandy" of sorts which consisted of 1 pint apricots, 1 pint peaches, 1 pint strawberries (all prepared, pitted and chopped, etc.) 4 quartered lemons, and 10 lbs of sugar. I added the fruit and sugar to the food-grade sanitized fermenter, topped it with 3 gallons of boiling water, covered and allowed to cool to pitching temp with the airlock on. Then I pitched in red star champ yeast, and within a half a day it was off like a mofo. The recipe called for a stir every day for 7 days, which I thought unorthodox, but it called for it so I obliged. After the 8th day the recipe called for me to pitch in 4 lbs of raisins, then allow to go undistrubed for 20 days. After the 20, I racked off into a racking bucket, sanitized the fermenter, then tossed it back in for like 2 months. I needed a bottle or two, so I clarified through some coffee filter action and into some glass screwtop 1 liters then into the fridge. Anyhoo, here's the problem, I gave a bottle to a guy I knew after pulling it out of the fridge. He swears that he smelled some sort of possible botulism type odor coming from it and that it was unsafe to drink. I, personally had

2 of the bottles of the same batch, sanitized in identical fashion, it was VERY strong, and sweet (meaning the champaign yeast had peaked out on alcohol tolerence, so around 16-18% abv) Personally, I really kinda liked it, nice apricot aftertaste. I'm still breathing, so I'm just wondering, is this guy full of crap, or could stray bacteria survive in such harsh conditions and produce lingering toxins. The fruit was douced with boiling water, the sugar desolved into that, the champ yeast was active as hell, and I added 4 lemons of acid and ended up with a high ABV?? It seems unlikely, but if it's possible I might need to step up sanitation 5 notches.