RICKY Agnew, the man who did for Glasgow's off-licence trade what the late Sir Reo Stakis did for restaurants, has his name above a shop again for the first time in 15 years.

Once again he is selling alcohol, but this time it is for a limited period only.

In a (pounds) 1m deal, he will be selling the entire stock of a Nor-wegian-based airline supplier at bargain basement prices from a store in Broomhill, Glasgow. The stock includes wines, spirits and beers as well as confectionery and brand-name cosmetics.

And he said that if the project is a success it could lead to a longer-term Agnew presence in the city.

Agnew started building up the hugely successful off-licence chain when he was only 19. By the time he sold it to Seagrams in 1986, he had 75 shops in Scotland, 18 in England, and a turnover of (pounds) 30m.

He managed the Scottish end of the business for Seagrams for a year before the outlets were rebranded as Oddbins and Victoria Wine. At that time, Agnews - famed for its ''There's always change at Agnews'' advertising jingle - ceased to exist.

Since then, Agnew has been running Marblehead Brand Development, a subsidiary of Agnews which was demerged before the sale to Seagrams.

It has been responsible for introducing Schlitz beer, one of the first and most successful ''designer'' beers to challenge the domestic brewers' dominance. ''That was a rising star. It was great fun doing it,'' said Agnew.

Marblehead, which is family-owned, had a turnover of (pounds) 2.5m last year and (pounds) 3m is predicted for this year. It operates UK-wide, with successes such as Absolut vodka, and Wyborova, which is at a bigger stage now than Absolut at its height.

The latest incursion back into selling alcohol transpired when an ex-Marblehead employee went to work in Poland, where he has opened three bars. A Norwegian colleague of his heard about the receivership of airline supplier Erling Qvale and the word got back to Agnew.

''They needed to sell their remaining stock quickly and have it removed from their warehouse. We were able, because of contacts we have and available funds, to make a commitment to get it out within eight days, which meant we got it at a very good price,'' he said.

''The plan was that my two brothers, Ronnie and David, were going to sell it on wholesale. They were hoping to shift it almost before it landed, but the uptake was very slow. I think there was too much stock in the market at the time.

''The wine is the most attractive part of the stock and there is a great deal of it, so we decided to open a shop. It only took us three weeks to locate and fit it out.''

The shop is not retail, since it is not licensed, so the minimum purchase of wine is one case, or two cases of beer. ''At the prices it's going at, that won't be a problem,'' he said.

Known as Agnews Clearance Outlet, it employs three people and will be open until the end of the year, or until stocks run out.

''If we could buy more stock in a similar way, we would keep going, but it would mean we would have to start scouring the world. There are a lot of complications. Because Norway isn't in the EC, we'd have to pay sugar taxes and the like on confectionery, so we may well destroy it instead.

''We can't sell tobacco products because UK duty isn't paid so we may well have to look outside of the EC to find a market for them.''

He says that he has no ambition to re-establish the Agnew chain - ''been there, done that'' - but suspects that his brothers might be tempted.

''The flow of traffic through that shop should be phenomenal and it might be worth keeping it going as a normal wholesale wine shop or trying to find similar packages in other countries,'' he said.