A Toast to the Season With This Could Cost You Several Hundred

The holidays can now officially begin. The season’s splashiest display of conspicuous consumption is upon us.

A $2,500 bottle of 30-year-old Glenfiddich pure malt Scotch whiskey is set to make a grand entrance Monday afternoon at Liquor Land in San Diego.

Snug in a decanter of Edinburgh crystal with a sterling silver stopper. Encased in a velvet-lined wooden chest. Nestled in a chauffeur-driven limousine, surrounded by a motorcycle escort.

It’s a Glenfiddich tradition to open a 30-year barrel every year. This year, 15 connoisseurs worldwide have ordered bottles from the 1959 barrel, including one locally.

The arrival of each bottle is treated like a royal visit. A representative from the distillery in Dufftown, Scotland, will be at Liquor Land to see that appropriate homage is paid.

“In the world of Scotch, Glenfiddich is royalty,” said Alise Kreditor, spokeswoman for the New York company that imports Glenfiddich. “We find many people are trading up from Chivas.”

Liquor Land owner Paris Shemirani says the soon-to-be owner is from the Rancho Santa Fe area. He won’t say more than that; Scotch drinkers savor their privacy.

There are limits to local hospitality, however.

Despite what Glenfiddich announced, that will not be a police escort coming down West Point Loma Boulevard. Private security guards riding former Police Department motorcycles sold at auction maybe, but not real cops.

“Not in this lifetime,” said police Sgt. Patrick McLarney. The city provides escorts only for dignitaries and nonprofit events such as marathon races.

A bottle of Scotch, even a $2,500 one, does not qualify. “Bourbon maybe, but not Scotch,” joked McLarney.

Party Poopers

Column stuffers:.

- Anti-abortion activists blame the Republican Party, not Bishop Leo T. Maher, for Carol Bentley’s narrow loss to Lucy Killea.

They say the party abandoned Bentley rather than get beat up in a fight over abortion. Killea had more money, more A-team political help from Sacramento and more stand-up support from party heavyweights.

Alan Cranston and John Van de Kamp stumped for Killea. George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson couldn’t find time to do likewise for Bentley.

Retired Army Lt. Col. James (Bo) Gritz, the real-life Rambo, comes to San Diego with accusations blazing today: a press conference, a meeting with MIA families, a 7:30 p.m. speech at Marston Middle School. He claims U.S. intelligence agencies are in bed with heroin kingpins.

- Right and left. The local Daughters of the American Revolution is the standing sponsor of the monthly naturalization ceremony at the War Memorial Building in Balboa Park.

Today, for the first time, the DAR’s co-sponsor will be the American Civil Liberties Union. ACLU President John Murphy will appear as Uncle Sam and present each new citizen with a copy of the Bill of Rights.

On Second Thought . . .

In her swearing-in speech this week, Councilwoman Judy McCarty pleaded for a halt to the political bickering that has put San Diego “in danger of slipping away from problem-solving to paralysis.”

She invoked her Midwestern roots for guidance:

“In establishing the experimental town of New Harmony, Ind., Robert Owen said, ‘If we cannot reconcile all opinion, let us endeavor to unite all hearts.’ ”

Question: Just who was this Robert Owen?

Answer: An impetuous, teetotaling Britisher who became godfather to the American Utopia movement after being rebuffed by Czar Nicholas of Russia.

He started New Harmony in 1825 and found it immediately mired in schism, class conflict and squabbles over property. He fled to England and had to be begged to return.

The experiment disbanded by 1827. The final blow was when a bunch of hard-drinking farmers moved in next door.

McCarty says she was unaware of New Harmony’s sad history but once saw Owen’s words carved in limestone. Does she think she can succeed where he failed?

“I just don’t know,” she said. “The council is trying--very trying.”