David Bowie and the heavy-metal band Iron Maiden, among others, have issued bonds secured by future rockstar revenues, but Charoen's whiskey-backed variety is as ``weird as it goes,'' the trader says. So weird that the bond's arrangers initially weren't sure they would sell. But Merill Lynch Phatra Securities, which arranged the deal, says each of the three tranches has met with increased investor interest, even though each one included a rising proportion of bonds, with maturities lengthening from 18 months to 29 months.

The most recent tranche, in late July, sold out two weeks beforethe book closed. And unlike the first two, in March and June, which sold mostly to Thai banks and financial institutions, retail customers took close to half the third tranche.

The problem for Charoen is a government plan to liberalise the Thai liquor trade. In January, the government plans to auction off the 13 government-owned distilleries that Charoen's company, Sang Som Group, has operated under licence for more than a decade. Boonrawd Group, already a fierce competitor of Charoen's in the beer market, looks certain to challenge; some foreign companies may do the same.

While Charoen still has a reputation as one of Thailand's richest men -- a former financial adviser once described him as "richer than God" -- Thailand's economic crisis hasn't left him unscathed. He held a controlling stake in First Bangkok City Bank PCL, which was taken over by the government last year. His finance company, Maha Thanakij Finance & Securities PCL, was among the 56 closed by the government in late 1997. Distilleriesand liquor are the jewel of his business interests.

Even in 1998, in the midst of recession, Thai consumers drank over 650 million litres of spirits, valued at some 50 billion baht ($1.34 billion). Those are potent numbers for the Sang Som Group, which supplied more than 80 per cent of that total and derives a similar share of its overall revenue from the 13 distilleries.

Most crucial for Charoen to retain is the Bang Yi Khan distillery, which produces Mekhong whiskey, one of Thailand's oldest and best-known brands. Industry analysts expect it to cost at least a billion baht. Charoen, however, is more ambitious. He says he will bid for all 13 distilleries.But buying distilleries is only one part of his strategy. One of his most lethal weapons may just be his formidable whiskey stocks, amounting to more than 530 million litres - equivalent to over two normal years' supply. And he is rushing to produce and bottle even more. For that he needed a lot of cash fast, hence his approach to capital markets for$500,000.

Charoen's advisers say this will allow him to sell whiskey at prices that his new rivals, encumbered by start-up costs and a higher tax rate, might find difficult to match. ``He can kill you in the market-place,'' says one Thai banker. ``If you don't have long-term funds, you are going to die.''Even so, Charoen had to make a special effort to reassure investors. The privately held Sang Som, though it has assets estimated at 40 billion baht, isn't considered particularly transparent. So Charoen created a paper company, LSPV Co. - an abbreviation for ``liquor special purpose vehicle'' - to raise his funds. LSPV is ``new, clean, and unencumbered by other debts and intangible assets which are sometimes difficult to explain to the public,'' Charoen says.

For investors, one attraction is the interest rate of 10.5 per cent on all three tranches, at a time when bank deposit rates have fallen to near-historic lows of around 4.5 per cent. Another was the reassuring market value of the whiskey collateral:It's at least double the size of the borrowing.

Yet there are risks. For starters, LSPV's main asset is scattered across Thailand in 200 separate warehouses. Ernst & Young has been hired to send auditors out to visit at least five warehouses a month to count bottles. Then there is the question of whether Thai whiskey drinkers will shift loyalty away from Charoen's brands, which include Mekhong, Hong Thong and a range of smaller brands tailored to local tastes in different regions of Thailand. But `according to Apilak Singhamasi, a Bangkok lottery-ticket vendor, that seems implausible, certainly within the 29 months of the bond. The 52-year old, who claims he has a ``copper stomach,'' drinks whiskey daily and declares: ``Other brands can't beat Mekhong.''

However, if the unthinkable should happen and Charoen were to lose all his distilleries, he would still have his beer interests. He started making Carlsberg in 1992, and two years later added Chang, a potent and inexpensive local brew. In 1999, he claims,he will have a 55 per cent share of the Thai beer market. If international trends are any guide, Charoen says, ``We think beer sales will overtake whiskey sales in the long run.''