Bottle of vodka worth €1.1m stolen from Copenhagen bar

A bottle of vodka believed to be one of the most expensive in the world that was on loan to a bar and museum in Copenhagen has been stolen following a break-in this week.

Russo-Baltique vodka. Image: Dartz Motorz.

As reported by Danish news site TV2 Lorry, a bottle of Russo-Baltique vodka was taken from Café 33’s Vodka Collection, situated in the Vesterbro district of Copenhagen, in the early hours of Tuesday (2 January) morning.

Thieves were reportedly in possession of either a real or copied key to the bar and then proceeded to unlock the door, roll up the shutter and break down the door to the museum in the basement.

The bottle of vodka contains three kilograms of gold and the same quantity of silver and is adorned with a circular patch of leather from a 1912 Monte Carlo rally car.

According to the owner of Café 33 Bar, Brian Ingberg, it is worth 8 million kroner equating to €1.1m or £960,000.

Speaking to TV2 Lorry, Ingberg said: “I have loaned [the vodka] from Russia from something called the Dartz Factory, which makes the world’s most expensive cars and vodka. It has been in my collection for half a year, but not anymore.”

“Of course I’m terribly upset. It was the cherry on the cake in my collection. Out of the 1,200 bottles in my collection, it was a very special bottle to have.”

Musing on how the robbers gained access to the property, Ingberg said: “They obviously had a key or copied a key, and so they rolled up the shutter and unlocked the door, and then they simply entered the bar and broke the door to the vodka museum in the basement.”

“They then took just one bottle, even though there are 1,200 bottles in the collection,” he added, inferring that the thieves had entered the bar with the sole purpose of stealing the bottle of Russo-Baltique.

He told the media that the bottle had attracted attention after its appearance in the Netflix series, House of Cards. Appearing in an episode in the third series, the bottle was presented to the US president, played by Kevin Spacey, by the Russian president, played by Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen.

TV2 Lorry reports that the incident was reported to the Copenhagen police and that the case is now being handled by the theft and burglary division.

In a Facebook post asking for help in locating the stolen bottle, Ingberg said that extensive footage of the thieves was captured on the bar’s cctv. He is offering a reward for return of the bottle.

Dartz Factory, also known as Dartz Motorz Company, is a privately held company based in Latvia and is a subsidiary of the Estonian corporation Dartz Grupa OÜ which designs and manufactures armoured vehicles and also vodka.

One of its Prombon models, the Dartz Monaco Red Diamond Edition, is fitted with gold-plated, bulletproof windows and bulletproof 22 inch alloys and comes complete with three bottles of Russo Baltique vodka, though it is unclear whether these bottles are of the same design as the one stolen from Café 33. The Prombon vehicles attracted negative media attention following their release in 2009 owing to the fact they were originally available in upholstered leather made from the foreskins of whale penises. The company has since dropped this element of the design.