(FORTUNE Magazine) – For Don Koziak, owner of the Chateau Louis Liquor Store in Edmonton, Alberta, it was the first ransom demand he'd ever received. At 4:27 A.M. on New Year's Day, a couple of thieves broke into his store and seized a $7,000 (U.S.) bottle of Bowmore 40 Year Old Single Malt Scotch. Two days later, a man called claiming to represent the thieves. He told Koziak they'd be "auctioning" the stolen goods and that if he outbid the competition, he'd be reunited with his booze. "I probably should have played along and met them under a bridge with a sack of money, just like in the movies," says Koziak, who turned the case over to the Edmonton police.

The ultrarare whisky (for a fuller description, see First, Jan. 12, 1998) does seem to bring out the worst in people. Earlier this fall a bottle was traveling across the U.S. as part of a Bon Appetit magazine road show when, somewhere between Chicago and Miami, it "disappeared." But in this case, Bowmore had the last laugh: The missing decanter was filled with Johnnie Walker as a security measure.

Alas, the Canadian thieves got the real thing. Bowmore is offering a free trip to its distillery in Scotland to anyone with information leading to the bottle's safe return. (Yes, you'll also get a dram or two of 40 Year from the distillery's private stash.) Koziak fears the worst. "My friends and I have this image of these guys getting pukingly drunk," he says. "It would be one hell of an expensive hangover." And may their heads throb forever.

--Ed Brown