Whisky fans, keep walking (2)

Membership at the club starts with a minimum purchase of 50,000 yuan ($8,043) from a selection of bottles, ranging from the Gold Label at 410 yuan per bottle to the Blue Label at 1,200 yuan a bottle.

The club reserves bottles for members in plush compartments of the Distillery Room, which holds the Diamond Jubilee, the club's highest priced bottle at 1.5 million yuan.

Yan Jici, 26, the club's bar manager, says he believes many who have frequented the club so far do not know anything about whisky. He says they are interested only in Johnnie Walker as a status symbol.

"Businesspeople in their early-30s to 40s tend to be the most pretentious whisky drinkers. They're the kind who really believes anything expensive amounts to social status," Yan says.

Yan adds that the club prides itself on steering Beijing towards luxury culture, and often attracts those who like to fake their way into sounding like connoisseurs.

"I hear a lot of newcomers say they like Johnnie Walker's smoky whisky best. You can bet they say that because the smoky whisky has the strongest flavor. They assume the stronger the whisky, the better it must be," he says.

With so much focus placed on making the club Beijing's new luxury destination for the super-rich, it's not yet clear how the Johnnie Walker House wants to attract its core members.

On the one hand, the club's appeal is exclusivity. And yet, the club has made itself open to the public. The club's biggest challenge according to Qu is "keeping a balance between those who come to the club as potential members and the general public who comes out of interest."

Qu points out that the club does not run for profit, but rather as a brand embassy.

He says, "We don't want to be so exclusive so as to attract no one. However, the club does not take an interest in the public's taste."

The club has little to angst over. As a living advertisement for the Johnnie Walker brand, the place needs few moneyed patrons to keep up appearances.

If the club really does hide a reclusive mastermind in its depths, his ploy is certainly a genius one. Belonging to an invisible club may seem like a privilege for the rich, but it also spares real whisky lovers their unbearable blather. Big spenders, like whisky connoisseurs, may want to keep walking their separate ways.

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