Page 105 - Microsoft Word - miniz-digest-98-103.docx

these, together with two others that
most of you will not have seen. I would
love to get my hands on all or even any
of these but there is very little chance of
that.

The Pagoda was made for the first flight
to China by KLM but I have been
unable to find out what year that was
(so much for all information being on-
line). The second presumably dates
from 1975 and is filled with Senior
Curacao, rather than Dutch Gin, which is the usual KLM offering. Kaatsbaan (Tennis Court) was
made for Huis ter Kleef by KLM / Bols but unusually was not issued on board KLM flights. I don’t
know much about this bottle but believe that
it may have been made as a fund raiser for
restoration of the Kaatsbaan which, if it
goes ahead and is again used for tennis,
will be the oldest covered tennis court in the
world. The final bottle was a retirement
present for Henk van der Vaart upon his
retirement after 40 years with KLM. It
depicts a house from the Philippines and is
officially house 88A. I suspect that this is a
‘one-off’ mini and one I will never get.

A couple more photos I was sent for MBL are
especially notable. Mikhail Maddar sent the
crystal decanter (Kaspar Cristal, France) photo.
This contains Hardy Cognac. Mikhail says it is
different from the three already shown on MBL. I
am struggling to see how but trust Mikhail’s
judgment. There are several Ye Olden Times
mini jugs but this one with the pipe attached is
really special.

Several members sent me photos of the latest iteration of
the Jim Beam set. This, the first photo, came from Pieta.
The previous weekend I had been at Ken Chin’s and had
photographed his set that he had just brought back from
Australia.

On this page we have the first three of the bottles
in the set above, Booker’s (6 to 8 year old blend),
Baker’s (7 year old) and Basil Hayden’s (8 year old
with a high proportion of Rye in the mash – see
later in this article for how I know that). The first
picture on the next page is the last of the bottles in
the set, Jim Beam Small Batch Bourbon with Port. I
thought that you might also like to see the
Japanese version.

- 4 -