Golden ticket

by **Rob Allanson** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:37 pm

European airport competition unveiled to win rare Ballantine's blend

Have Pernod Ricard Travel Retail executives been staying up past their bedtime to read Roald Dahl's 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'? It could well be as the company has announced it has hidden one golden ticket inside one of 1,000 bottles of Ballantine's 30 Year Old bound for stores at Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt and London Heathrow airports.
The lucky traveller purchasing the bottle with the ticket will a bottle of Ballantine's 35 Year Old Championship Blend, one of only 15 bottles released last year to celebrate the second Ballantine's golf Championship held in South Korea.
Ballantine's master blender Sandy Hyslop and the Championship's first winner, Northern Irish golfer Graeme McDowell, worked together to create the blend, the first time somebody outside the company has helped develop a product.
One bottle of Ballantine's 35Year Old Championship Blend was presented to last year's tournament winner, Thongchai Jaidee, and another was auctioned during the event for charity, fetching $11,000 (£6,715).