OREANDA-NEWS. January 17, 2013. Diageo has opened a whisky clubhouse in Beijing to meet growing demand. It's a Christmas present fit for a Chinese billionaire. For the eye-watering, throat-searing price of Pound 80,000 – a bottle of personalised Johnnie Walker.

That's what is on offer at Diageo's new temple to wealth and whisky, Beijing's 1,500sq ft, four-floor Johnnie Walker House. Jim Beveridge, the company's appropriately named and softly professorial 'master blender' flew from Scotland to China to create the bottle, which comes with its own wheeled leather trunk so that it can be rolled tableside in the private dining rooms upstairs.

The Johnnie Walker House, a manly 1.8m clubhouse for whisky lovers, stands in a quiet courtyard compound a stone's throw from Tiananmen Square.

Partly, it is an exercise in burnishing Johnnie Walker's brand, communicating its history to Chinese customers. "Eighty per cent of Chinese millionaires are under 45. They like brands with history, heritage, provenance," says Gilbert Ghostine, the head of Diageo in Asia.

The building is a steampunk confection of copper, leather and wood with walls built from peat or trickling with water. On the first floor is a painted advertisement from the 1930s, with a Chinese-looking Johnnie Walker proclaiming the virtues of his whisky. "It has a strong taste and acts as a stimulant. One of the oldest brands in the world, it is a reliable product. It can benefit the drinker, making you healthier as you drink more".