West Hollywood entrepreneur Blaine Vess is forking over $64,000 to buy a dram of Macallan scotch from £10 (Ten Pound)—and Macallan is then forking the cash over to Liberty in North Korea (LiNK).
“I first went to £10 a couple of years ago and remembered the staff talking about the $64,000 dram, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that I realized the proceeds would go to the charity of the buyer’s choosing. Once I heard that, I was immediately interested and talked to my friends at Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) about doing something special around the purchase of the dram,” Blaine Vess, co-founder and CEO of WeHo-based StudyMode, said via e-mail.
According to a press representative for Vess, the 85-proof dram contains three single malts filled in 1942, 1945 and 1946 and is the only mini-bottle of its kind. It was reportedly sent to £10 and the Montage Hotel following a Sotheby’s auction in which a decanter of the scotch raised $460,000 for charity (setting a Guinness record), then auctions of bottles of it raised another $150,000.
“We were honored … to be entrusted with the last remaining dram of this valuable scotch at £10,” Hermann Elger, then the general manager of Montage Beverly Hills, told Robb Report in 2012. “We’ve actually become quite fond of it, and the story that goes along with it. But there’s a charity more eager to get the money than we are to keep the scotch.”
That charity, it turns out, is LiNK, which describes itself as “a global movement standing with the North Korean people as they face one of the biggest challenges confronting humanity today.” North Korea is a dictatorship, many of whose 24 million people live under conditions of extreme poverty and suffer from bouts of famine.
Vess joined the board of LiNK in December and recently became its chair.
“This cause is important to me because it affects so many people, and there aren’t many organizations working on the issue,” he said. “North Korea is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. Sadly, not many people realize that there are real ways to help and get involved. I love being a part of an organization that consistently delivers tangible results through our awareness and rescue programs. Finally, I greatly appreciate the freedoms we have in the USA and I believe those freedoms should be available to everyone.”
What will happen to the liquor itself is a surprise, Vess said. Presumably all will be revealed when he makes the official purchase on Saturday at 5 p.m. at £10 at Montage Beverly Hills, 225 N. Canon Dr. at Wilshire in Beverly Hills. Staff members from LiNK will attend along with one or two people who have defected from North Korea, Vess said, and they will talk about the organization’s mission.
This story has been updated to clarify that it is Macallan that donated the money to LiNK.
