In a bizarre heist, thieves have stolen 30,000 litres of valuable iceberg water from a Canadian vodka distiller - enough to make 150,000 bottles of vodka.
Iceberg Vodka CEO David Meyers says he and his staff were shocked to discover the water missing last Monday (local time).
"Jesus, what are they going to do with it?" an employee at an iceberg water company told the Guardian.
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The water had been harvested from an iceberg that drifted down the coast of Newfoundland last spring. It had not yet been bottled and was being stored in a large tank.
Iceberg water is valued as it is particularly pure once melted - although it's difficult to collect. Mr Meyers says harvesting the water is a "dangerous and costly endeavour" and was guarded like a "precious commodity".
"Think about a grape harvest to make wine, you only have one crack at it a year. It's the same thing with icebergs," Mr Meyer told the Montreal Gazette.
It's unclear why thieves would make off with so much water, although it's possible they thought they were stealing vodka.
"Honestly, at the end of the day it is the part that makes us so special as Iceberg vodka, rum and gin. We view it as priceless," Mr Meyers told The Telegram.
"We were shocked. Honestly we were dumbfounded - we were going, 'Really, someone took our water? Seriously?'"
The company will now need to wait until the next iceberg season before it can replace the water. But Mr Meyers hopes there's a silver lining to the chilling theft.
"The thing that makes Iceberg vodka, rum and gin so special is that it's actually made with iceberg water. We're the only one in the world to do that because it's the purest source of water on the planet. It's a big part of who we are," he told The Telegram.
"From an awareness point of view, people are actually going, 'Oh, Iceberg actually does use iceberg water, so how about that?' Hopefully there's a small glimmer of good news that comes in something that's quite shocking and bad."
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