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When Heineken Made Bottles That Could Be Used as Bricks · Ridiculous History

0:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, hi, Nick and everybody, no, no warning me. You
0:30
Speaker 1: did warn me, I know, all fair. Before we started
0:32
Speaker 1: this episode, I leaned away from the mic and whispered,
0:35
Speaker 1: I have the worst pun, and that is it. We
0:38
Speaker 1: can guarantee that that will be the worst pun of
0:40
Speaker 1: the show today. Uh, this is of course ridiculous history.
0:45
Speaker 1: We were joined as always with our super producer, Casey Pegrum,
0:50
Speaker 1: and today we are talking about Heineken. Yeah. Today's episode
0:54
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Heineken. Oh no, I'm sorry,
0:57
Speaker 1: it's Miller lied, right right, right, I need to refresh
1:00
Speaker 1: those Oh yeah, are we gonna yeah, well, you know what,
1:03
Speaker 1: we're already rolling. Let's just do. Let's just do the
1:05
Speaker 1: show and hope Miller doesn't get mad at it. I'm
1:07
Speaker 1: sure it's fine. We have a good relationship with Miller
1:09
Speaker 1: and we have a great story for you today about
1:13
Speaker 1: Heineken and Heineken. Heineken Logger Beer is a internationally known
1:20
Speaker 1: pale lagger five percent alcohol by volume. You've seen it.
1:24
Speaker 1: It's got that iconic green bottle with the red star
1:27
Speaker 1: out of the Netherlands, Holland. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and
1:32
Speaker 1: the company itself dates way back to eighteen sixty four
1:38
Speaker 1: when a guy named Gerard Adrian Heineken convinced his mom
1:44
Speaker 1: to buy a brewery in Amsterdam. It's called the hay
1:48
Speaker 1: Stack Brewery, and that was the beginning of the of
1:53
Speaker 1: the Heineken story. But it wouldn't be for many, many
1:56
Speaker 1: more years that it would become the ubiquitous brand that
2:00
Speaker 1: we know it as today. Right, if we're looking for
2:04
Speaker 1: a person to think for the international popularity of Heineken
2:09
Speaker 1: in the modern day Heineken as we understand it, then
2:12
Speaker 1: we should tip our collective hats to Alfred Henry Heineken
2:16
Speaker 1: known as Freddie to his friends, to his friends in
2:18
Speaker 1: the press. Yeah. It was one of those like names
2:20
Speaker 1: and quotes, you know, and be like Alfred Freddie Heineken. Yeah, yeah.
2:24
Speaker 1: He he strikes me as the type of guy who
2:26
Speaker 1: probably said, call me Freddie, call me Freddie. My parents
2:29
Speaker 1: call me Alfred when I'm in trouble exactly, you know
2:32
Speaker 1: what I mean. But the thing about Freddie, which I'm
2:34
Speaker 1: gonna call him that because it's just more fun. I mean,
2:37
Speaker 1: we've given him enough money over the years. No, I
2:39
Speaker 1: think we can call him Freddie. You know, I'm not
2:40
Speaker 1: a Heineken guy. I'm not either, but I dabbled in college.
2:44
Speaker 1: I think I said in the last episode the quote
2:46
Speaker 1: from Blue Velvet, which I'm not going to go into
2:48
Speaker 1: again here, but I'm more of a perhaps guy. I'm
2:51
Speaker 1: gonna drink a beer a beer because I'm not even
2:54
Speaker 1: really a beer guy. I'm more of a whiskey guy. Yeah,
2:56
Speaker 1: But we digress. So Freddie YEA. For the reason he
3:00
Speaker 1: elevated this company to the meteoric stature that that it
3:04
Speaker 1: is today in the world of beer is because he
3:07
Speaker 1: had a really good eye for branding. He is the
3:10
Speaker 1: one that oversaw the that label that you that you
3:14
Speaker 1: know so well, um with the star and the Heineken logo,
3:19
Speaker 1: but more importantly, that iconic green bottle. Yeah, the iconic
3:25
Speaker 1: green bottle was his call. And he's pretty open about
3:29
Speaker 1: it because he always had this eye for marketing. And
3:34
Speaker 1: he said himself several times in public that if he
3:37
Speaker 1: had not been in the brewing business, he would have
3:40
Speaker 1: been an admin because he was personally fascinated by this,
3:44
Speaker 1: and you know, obviously he was pretty good at it.
3:46
Speaker 1: And just to backcheck ever so slightly, it was in
3:49
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three when prohibition was repealed that Heineken first
3:54
Speaker 1: kind of came into the the American market and has
3:58
Speaker 1: been one of the top selling brands ever since. But
4:01
Speaker 1: because of Freddie's admin sensibilities that you just mentioned, um,
4:05
Speaker 1: he really took everything to the next level. By nineteen sixty,
4:11
Speaker 1: they were selling like a million cases of beer a year. Um.
4:16
Speaker 1: Today it's more in the neighborhood of fifty million cases
4:20
Speaker 1: a year. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of the top ten
4:23
Speaker 1: beers in the world by volume. And one thing that
4:26
Speaker 1: I really respect about Freddie is that he was not
4:29
Speaker 1: just a boardroom boss. He went out in the streets himself.
4:34
Speaker 1: As we see in the obituary on Alfred Heineken from
4:37
Speaker 1: The New York Times by Paul Miller. Shortly after World
4:40
Speaker 1: War Two, Freddie went to New York himself and he
4:43
Speaker 1: walked around Manhattan personally handing out Heineken to bartenders like
4:49
Speaker 1: he's the king of the company basically, and he's in
4:52
Speaker 1: the trenches. And he says that his two years he
4:56
Speaker 1: spent in New York changed his life. He was a
4:59
Speaker 1: big traveler, which is a huge part of our episode two.
5:02
Speaker 1: Not only did he learn about the export market, but
5:05
Speaker 1: he also found the love of his life a lady
5:08
Speaker 1: named Lucille Cummins who was the daughter of a whiskey
5:11
Speaker 1: making family in Kentucky. So I think it's a really
5:15
Speaker 1: neat coincidence that they were both from these Oh I
5:19
Speaker 1: almost said alcoholic families, alcohol manufacturing families. I bet they
5:23
Speaker 1: threw great posts. Oh, I bet they did, Nolan. Now,
5:27
Speaker 1: as you said, it's one of the three global giants
5:30
Speaker 1: in the world of beer. I think it's second only
5:33
Speaker 1: to anneheuser Busch and well no, and in terms of
5:37
Speaker 1: ex imported beers, I think it's second to Corona. I
5:40
Speaker 1: want to say this is number one. That that could
5:43
Speaker 1: be an old stat doesn't matter, not with today's stories.
5:46
Speaker 1: About today's story is about a trip that Freddie took
5:49
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty uh to an island called Kura. Cow.
5:53
Speaker 1: Did I say that right? Cow? I think it's curas how,
5:57
Speaker 1: just because I remember having it on a Cool Stuff
6:00
Speaker 1: on Planet episode million years ago. Thanks man, that's been
6:03
Speaker 1: Casey on the Case. I love that segment, and it's
6:08
Speaker 1: and we need it. You really did need it. It's
6:10
Speaker 1: not like I couldn't just like googled, you know, the pronunciation.
6:13
Speaker 1: But no, it's better. We have the human touch from
6:15
Speaker 1: Casey Pigraham, like Freddie Heineken said, we don't sell beer,
6:20
Speaker 1: we sell warmth. Right, it's wonderful, and Casey is warmth personified.
6:25
Speaker 1: So in nineteen sixty he took a trip out of
6:27
Speaker 1: already forgot what is it again, Casey Casey on the
6:30
Speaker 1: case Boom curus Ow in the Caribbean Sea Um, which
6:34
Speaker 1: sounds like a lovely place, except at the time it
6:37
Speaker 1: wasn't quite so lovely because they in this country did
6:40
Speaker 1: not have the infrastructure for garbage disposal, let alone recycling. Right, Yeah,
6:47
Speaker 1: it was tough. He said that he was walking on
6:50
Speaker 1: the beach and it's like a vacation for him. Heineken
6:53
Speaker 1: is popular there by the way, and he was alarmed
6:56
Speaker 1: because he said he could barely walk fifteen feet without
7:00
Speaker 1: stepping on a litterd Heineken bottle. That's right. According to
7:05
Speaker 1: Housing for the Millions by John Habracken and the s
7:08
Speaker 1: A r Um, he experienced the slums of of this
7:15
Speaker 1: this island and there were just mountains of garbage according
7:19
Speaker 1: to this this book, just surrounding everything. Not to mention
7:23
Speaker 1: the beaches, as you say, we're just littered with trash,
7:27
Speaker 1: many of which were those iconic green bottles, and that
7:31
Speaker 1: wasn't a good look as far as Freddy was concerned.
7:34
Speaker 1: He felt like he needed to do something about it, right,
7:37
Speaker 1: and it speaks very highly to his character. You know,
7:40
Speaker 1: back at this time, it was common for bottles to
7:44
Speaker 1: be reused. So you would drink a beer and then
7:48
Speaker 1: you would take the bottle back somewhere and it would
7:51
Speaker 1: be refilled and resold. And I saw what it was like.
7:54
Speaker 1: It would make a return round trip to the brewery
7:57
Speaker 1: like dozens of times, potentially right lake up to thirty
8:01
Speaker 1: times or so. And the problem there that bedeviled him
8:06
Speaker 1: so much was that he knew there had to be
8:11
Speaker 1: a solution, and so he and John Habric in the
8:15
Speaker 1: architect and author that we just mentioned, he and Habrican
8:19
Speaker 1: partnered up together to try to find a multipurpose solutions,
8:25
Speaker 1: so not just to clean up the litter on the
8:27
Speaker 1: beach and the island, not just to mitigate the bottle
8:31
Speaker 1: waste that littered the place, but also to help provide
8:36
Speaker 1: building materials because a lot of these people were living
8:39
Speaker 1: in what we would call shanty towns, that's right, like
8:42
Speaker 1: the slums we're talking about earlier um as mentioned in
8:45
Speaker 1: this book, and the title of this book should give
8:48
Speaker 1: you a little clue. Housing for the Millions is this
8:50
Speaker 1: idea of creative solutions to housing crisises. And this is
8:56
Speaker 1: exactly what he set out to do with a crazy idea.
9:00
Speaker 1: Yea he liked to refer to as the Wobo. The Wobo, Yes,
9:05
Speaker 1: the rectangular Heineken World bottle. It was it was meant
9:11
Speaker 1: to serve as a regular beer bottle, so you would
9:14
Speaker 1: buy it and you would drink beer. But then once
9:17
Speaker 1: you were done with it, you could also use the
9:20
Speaker 1: bottle the same way you would use a brick, so
9:24
Speaker 1: you could build hypothetically rooms, houses, shelter entirely out of
9:31
Speaker 1: Heineken beer bottles. And we can describe a little bit
9:35
Speaker 1: about the the specifics of the bottle, which you can
9:38
Speaker 1: still see on display at the Heineken Museum. Yeah, they
9:41
Speaker 1: sort of had these little notches or a little bumps.
9:45
Speaker 1: I guess that that could interlock. It wasn't like a
9:48
Speaker 1: lego brake exactly. They didn't like snap into each other.
9:51
Speaker 1: But the idea was that you could apply cement or
9:54
Speaker 1: mortar and it would it would bond these together pretty easily.
9:57
Speaker 1: And yes, of course they're stackable and if you can
10:00
Speaker 1: picture them, um, they really do look exactly like bricks
10:03
Speaker 1: when they're stacked, because the there's a recess at the
10:07
Speaker 1: end so that the nozzle or the part you drink
10:10
Speaker 1: from nozzles them. The mouth hole that's that's way more dignified,
10:15
Speaker 1: would fit into the divot at the bottom on one end,
10:18
Speaker 1: so they would be completely flush, and they would be
10:20
Speaker 1: staggered like bricks. And they came in two sizes, three
10:25
Speaker 1: and five milli leaders so that you could use some
10:28
Speaker 1: shorter bricks if necessary during construction. A ten ft by
10:33
Speaker 1: ten foot building structure would take approximately one thousand bottles
10:39
Speaker 1: to build. First off, depending on how you feel about Heineken,
10:43
Speaker 1: that's either great or really inconvenient because that's a lot
10:46
Speaker 1: of beer, you know what I mean, that's true. When
10:54
Speaker 1: he was thinking about this, they got into some very
10:57
Speaker 1: interesting industrial design. I love the mention of the recessed
11:03
Speaker 1: divot and the shorter neck. It looks so it looks
11:06
Speaker 1: like a rounded rectangle, almost like a whiskey bottle, right,
11:11
Speaker 1: And this led us to ask another fascinating question, which
11:15
Speaker 1: is why are beer bottles round? It turns out there's
11:20
Speaker 1: a there's a great answer. The bottles are made by
11:22
Speaker 1: blowing air under high pressure into a glop of glass
11:26
Speaker 1: or plastic. But that you know, beer is going to
11:28
Speaker 1: be in class, right, and it expands outward in all
11:31
Speaker 1: directions until it hits this mold where it solidifies and
11:35
Speaker 1: the structure of the round shape distributes pressure much better,
11:41
Speaker 1: so a bottle is less likely to break. It's just
11:44
Speaker 1: kind of the same reason eggs are spheres. That's right.
11:47
Speaker 1: And I imagine there's also sort of a tactile element
11:49
Speaker 1: there too, where it's easier to grip a round thing
11:52
Speaker 1: than a squared off thing. Oh good call, I don't know.
11:56
Speaker 1: That just occurs to me. But ben, so, are you
11:58
Speaker 1: saying that to make these lea shaped bottles would be
12:02
Speaker 1: a more complex manufacturing process and potentially more expensive for
12:06
Speaker 1: the Heineken company. Yeah, anytime you're doing a significant shift
12:11
Speaker 1: in mass production, there's going to be an upfront associated costs.
12:17
Speaker 1: And then also people, as groups consumers tend to be
12:23
Speaker 1: adverse to change. And one of the problems that people
12:28
Speaker 1: had with the Heineken bottle internally, not consumers internally, Heineken
12:34
Speaker 1: said they thought it might be too effeminate. Did you
12:38
Speaker 1: see that part I did. Did you see the amazing
12:40
Speaker 1: retort from Cabinet magazine? Yes? Ye, did you read it
12:45
Speaker 1: to it? Yeah, just saying that this was a very
12:47
Speaker 1: strange um critique quote considering that the bottle consisted of
12:52
Speaker 1: two bulbous compartments surmounted by a long shaft. Yeah, yeah,
13:00
Speaker 1: that's funny. But they went through several different prototypes, um,
13:05
Speaker 1: and a ton of them, or all of them except one.
13:07
Speaker 1: Ultimately we're rejected by the board um because they because
13:13
Speaker 1: of the thing that I just described a minute ago,
13:14
Speaker 1: that this was a costly manufacturing process. It wasn't what
13:18
Speaker 1: executives like to call scalable, right, And they were pursuing
13:23
Speaker 1: too different aims to make an effective construction material, a
13:28
Speaker 1: reliable effective construction material, and then also to make a
13:33
Speaker 1: cost effective container for you know, their main product, this
13:37
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverage known as Heineken. And on the way they
13:41
Speaker 1: attempted to make several fixes. Significantly, they thickened the glass
13:46
Speaker 1: because you know, these bottles are supposed to be laid
13:48
Speaker 1: horizontally when their bricks, and they were attempting to their
13:54
Speaker 1: mission on the beer side was an attempt to bring
13:58
Speaker 1: the cost per bottle down to the established cost per
14:01
Speaker 1: bottle of the existing cylindrical design, and they just couldn't
14:06
Speaker 1: do it. I don't imagine that would be very difficult.
14:08
Speaker 1: From the point of Heineken's infrastructure. It's already cheaper and
14:11
Speaker 1: faster to make the bottles the way they were already
14:14
Speaker 1: being made. And to the point that we brought up
14:19
Speaker 1: earlier in this great Smithsonian article, the author speculates that
14:24
Speaker 1: what most likely worked against Haprikins design was that customers
14:29
Speaker 1: just liked how easy it was to hold the cylindrical bottle. Yeah,
14:33
Speaker 1: so I think you're on the money with that. And
14:36
Speaker 1: have we talked about how many how many milli eaters
14:39
Speaker 1: these contained? Were These These weren't like these weren't like
14:42
Speaker 1: uh tall boys. These were like a regimant to have
14:45
Speaker 1: the same amount of liquid as the standard Heineken. Yeah yeah,
14:48
Speaker 1: and the two sizes I have mentioned earlier, that's right,
14:50
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, And that that also becomes weird because then
14:55
Speaker 1: you have to ask, is the consumer just purposely buying
14:57
Speaker 1: a smaller beer because they need to build the literal
15:00
Speaker 1: glass house. That's the other videos of literal glass houses
15:04
Speaker 1: and the brick bottles themselves. Because of these various cost objections,
15:11
Speaker 1: and because of concerns about how consumers would react to them,
15:16
Speaker 1: these brick bottles never got onto the consumer market, but
15:21
Speaker 1: people remained impressed by the idea, so much so that
15:26
Speaker 1: in nine they built a prototype house out of these
15:32
Speaker 1: bottles near near one of Alfred Heineken's houses in Amsterdam.
15:37
Speaker 1: Are you talking about the little shed with like a
15:40
Speaker 1: corrugated metal roof and the tiny little four pane window thing. Yeah,
15:44
Speaker 1: it's not that. Just it's like just the walls are
15:48
Speaker 1: built out of the bottles, and we haven't really talked
15:50
Speaker 1: about like logistically, surely this wouldn't offer much installation from
15:56
Speaker 1: like the elements and stuff like that, right, Like, I know,
16:00
Speaker 1: glass does offer a certain amount of insulation, but these
16:03
Speaker 1: wouldn't be completely air tight with that, and I don't know,
16:05
Speaker 1: I guess if they were mortared together they would, but
16:08
Speaker 1: it just seems like they would get really cold if
16:11
Speaker 1: if it was you know, winter, if your whole house
16:14
Speaker 1: is made of a material like that, unless you added
16:17
Speaker 1: some extra installation on the inside, it seems like it
16:20
Speaker 1: would be pretty pretty nasty. No. I know, there are
16:24
Speaker 1: some there are some structures that use plastic bottles to
16:30
Speaker 1: provide um to provide cooling. But yeah, obviously there's a
16:35
Speaker 1: reason that people tend to rely more on things like
16:37
Speaker 1: wood and stone. So I did read that they produced
16:40
Speaker 1: fifty thousand of these that were meant for production, but
16:44
Speaker 1: they never made it past that stage. Why why do
16:47
Speaker 1: you think that is? I couldn't see a detail like
16:49
Speaker 1: why they make so many and then it's never bothered
16:52
Speaker 1: putting them out there. Well, again, because the cost concern.
16:56
Speaker 1: It didn't have scale, so they made the fifty as
16:59
Speaker 1: a test to see a testerone or something. The guys
17:01
Speaker 1: a lot. They got close. But then also you know,
17:04
Speaker 1: these guys are making millions and millions of these every year,
17:07
Speaker 1: or the cylindrical ones at least. And then also, as
17:11
Speaker 1: they mentioned earlier, the concern that consumers just wouldn't react
17:16
Speaker 1: well to the change. However, something very very inspiring here
17:21
Speaker 1: because although Freddie may have ultimately not succeeded in creating
17:27
Speaker 1: this reusable brick bottle, other companies have and there's a
17:32
Speaker 1: company called e M one u M that succeeded. They
17:36
Speaker 1: were mostly successful in Argentina. They've received numerous awards for
17:41
Speaker 1: their bottle designs. They make bottles that are prisms cubes, cylinders,
17:47
Speaker 1: and you know it's I think this kind of smart
17:52
Speaker 1: conscious Dare I say woke construction has some some real
17:57
Speaker 1: potential for the future. Man, other companies are doing it
18:00
Speaker 1: to A French design company tried to resurrect the Wobo
18:04
Speaker 1: design by making a cube. But yeah, it looks kind
18:06
Speaker 1: of like a gas canister and I can't quite tell
18:10
Speaker 1: the scale or the size of it, but I feel
18:12
Speaker 1: like this would be almost more like a growler size
18:14
Speaker 1: of beer than like for an individual. And their reasoning
18:18
Speaker 1: behind doing this was making them stackable so that they
18:21
Speaker 1: would travel easier and be able to uh, you know,
18:25
Speaker 1: put in the back of your car for a you know,
18:27
Speaker 1: family gathering or something, and not have them clinking around
18:30
Speaker 1: in a cool or something like that. I'm not sure
18:33
Speaker 1: how well this did. I've certainly never seen one of
18:35
Speaker 1: these out in the out in the world. And you know,
18:38
Speaker 1: you also have to wonder how inconvenient or convenient is
18:42
Speaker 1: it to drink beer from a cube? So I have
18:44
Speaker 1: a question for you know, casey and old ridiculous historians
18:47
Speaker 1: listening now. When you were in school, did you ever
18:51
Speaker 1: encounter milk in a bag? Yeah? I think we likely
18:54
Speaker 1: this has come up before. Yeah, it's so I'm still
18:56
Speaker 1: mystified by super weird. It looks like some sort of
18:59
Speaker 1: medical supply. It looks like some sort of medical implant. Yeah.
19:02
Speaker 1: And then and there's a little hole with a perforated
19:05
Speaker 1: edge that you stick your straw into and then you
19:07
Speaker 1: drink the milk from the bag. Yeah. Did you ever
19:10
Speaker 1: have any of those? Casey, No, ours were just in
19:12
Speaker 1: the paper carts, which also kind of vaguely gross me up.
19:15
Speaker 1: I had that too, But I remember early for me,
19:20
Speaker 1: there was a brief period of bag milk. Yeah. I
19:23
Speaker 1: don't know what kind of backroom deal occurred between dairy
19:27
Speaker 1: suppliers and local governments, but that that's my number one
19:32
Speaker 1: personal example of the time when a relatively small design
19:38
Speaker 1: philosophy or approach made a big difference. So funny this
19:42
Speaker 1: Heineken cube that we were just talking about that kind
19:44
Speaker 1: of like again not seeing these anywhere, but it was
19:48
Speaker 1: it was handheld. It was just a personal size. It
19:50
Speaker 1: wasn't bigger. You could tell it with the bottle cat
19:52
Speaker 1: I see it now. And also there's a there's a
19:53
Speaker 1: picture of a guy pouring it into a glass and
19:57
Speaker 1: then also drinking directly from it, which looked super cord
20:00
Speaker 1: because the what do you call it, the neck I'm
20:02
Speaker 1: gonna go with mouth hole is recessed in a in
20:04
Speaker 1: a kind of odd way, and it seems like a
20:06
Speaker 1: very strange thing to hold in your hand. It's just
20:09
Speaker 1: one of the top quarters. And while this housing trend
20:12
Speaker 1: that that Freddie was so fond of ever thought was
20:15
Speaker 1: such an innovative idea, which it was, um never really
20:18
Speaker 1: took off. There's a pretty cool example that I've seen
20:21
Speaker 1: sighted in every article that that that tells the story. Um.
20:24
Speaker 1: It is a temple in Thailand that's made entirely out
20:29
Speaker 1: of uh Heineken bottles and also the local tai beer
20:34
Speaker 1: chan Chang, and I think to date it's like over
20:38
Speaker 1: a million bottles making this thing up, and it's ornate
20:41
Speaker 1: and like all these kind of almost mandala esque like
20:46
Speaker 1: stained glass looking patterns, and even use the bottle caps
20:49
Speaker 1: to make more of these kind of designs. And if
20:52
Speaker 1: you didn't really, like really look closely, you would not
20:54
Speaker 1: know what it was made of. It's beautiful and it's
20:58
Speaker 1: way bigger than you think. It's crazy, and apparently they
21:01
Speaker 1: continue to build onto it with these discarded bottles, so
21:05
Speaker 1: at least that vision that Freddie had of like taking
21:08
Speaker 1: this stuff and turning it into something else in an
21:11
Speaker 1: interesting way, is happening, at least in one kind of
21:15
Speaker 1: off the wall example. So Freddie Heydingen's life, while it
21:25
Speaker 1: was replete with these amazing progressive acts in terms of
21:30
Speaker 1: design and marketing, it wasn't all roses and angel harps.
21:36
Speaker 1: He had several uh misadventures and unfortunate events, probably the
21:41
Speaker 1: most famous of which was the time that he and
21:44
Speaker 1: his chauffeur were kidnapped in nineteen eighty three by a
21:48
Speaker 1: criminal organization in the Dutch underworld. I thought you were
21:51
Speaker 1: going to say the netherworld of the Netherlands. Yeah, if
21:55
Speaker 1: he happy, Netherlands on my mind as as well, they
21:58
Speaker 1: should be. Um, this is is a a bizarre story. Um.
22:03
Speaker 1: He and his his chauffeur were snatched up and taken
22:06
Speaker 1: to a warehouse where they were chained UM two in
22:11
Speaker 1: concrete cells for three weeks. And it turns out this
22:14
Speaker 1: whole thing was orchestrated by a Dutch gangster, a criminal
22:18
Speaker 1: mastermind by the name of Villam Holly Deare, who has
22:22
Speaker 1: described in an article on The Guardian as being a cold,
22:27
Speaker 1: vulgar killer who had a bit of a public persona
22:32
Speaker 1: that was kind of almost celebrity like. Yeah, he was
22:38
Speaker 1: like a comic super villain. He even had a cool
22:41
Speaker 1: villain nickname the Nose, the Nose due to the size
22:45
Speaker 1: of his nose. In this article by Daniel Boffi, they
22:48
Speaker 1: explore some of his exploits. There's even a movie based
22:53
Speaker 1: on that three kidnapping called Kidnapping Freddie Heineken. That's a
22:58
Speaker 1: super creative name, I know, first of creativity. I've never
23:01
Speaker 1: heard of this, and Anthony Hopkins is in it, sir Anthony,
23:04
Speaker 1: excuse me, um, but yeah, they they held them for
23:10
Speaker 1: a ransom of thirty five million Dutch guilders, and at
23:16
Speaker 1: the time, Freddy Heineken was the most wealthy businessman in
23:19
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, right, that's right, And um I did read
23:22
Speaker 1: that They that it was paid, but they actually got
23:27
Speaker 1: kind of busted out because one of the whoever was
23:30
Speaker 1: babysitting them, you know whatever underboss or you know, Minion
23:34
Speaker 1: was doing this made a fatal error. Yes, they made
23:37
Speaker 1: a fatal flaw. One of the kidnappers and they were
23:40
Speaker 1: about five guys involved with this kidnapping. One of the
23:43
Speaker 1: kidnappers called for some Chinese takeout and accidentally gave away
23:48
Speaker 1: their locations. So the police were able to burst into
23:52
Speaker 1: the warehouse rescue Freddie, but they it took them a
23:57
Speaker 1: while to catch all of the criminals, but it does
24:00
Speaker 1: have a happy ending. Neither Freddie nor his driver were
24:05
Speaker 1: killed first off, but they were left pretty shell shocked.
24:08
Speaker 1: And I think Freddie had to have a like security
24:10
Speaker 1: detail from for the rest of his life and chose
24:13
Speaker 1: to and kind of gradually withdrew from the public. I
24:17
Speaker 1: he had been, you know, the Freddie we mentioned from
24:20
Speaker 1: the sixties who would go door to door at the bars,
24:23
Speaker 1: you know, giving out samples. I think he kind of
24:25
Speaker 1: carried that persona um later in life, and when this
24:28
Speaker 1: and the unfortunate event happened, I think that probably shut
24:31
Speaker 1: it down a good bit and he could withdrew and
24:33
Speaker 1: really protected his family and their privacy from from that
24:36
Speaker 1: point on. Yeah, and several other people involved in the
24:41
Speaker 1: kidnapping had stories of their own. So there was a
24:44
Speaker 1: guy in Franz Major who escaped from custody in Amsterdam
24:50
Speaker 1: and then showed back up on the international radar in
24:54
Speaker 1: Paraguay ten years later, where he owned a quote down
24:58
Speaker 1: market restaurant Mary with three kids and one of the
25:02
Speaker 1: other kidnappers. I appreciate that you mentioned this slow withdrawal
25:06
Speaker 1: from public life because one of the other kidnappers, a
25:10
Speaker 1: guy named cor Van hot h o U T excuse me,
25:14
Speaker 1: he followed, He served his jail time, he got arrested,
25:18
Speaker 1: he didn't escape, but when he got out of jail,
25:21
Speaker 1: he would still occasionally follow Freddie Heineken around and try
25:26
Speaker 1: to like talk trash to him. Is that weird? It
25:29
Speaker 1: seems very smart. It seems incredibly petty too well, especially
25:33
Speaker 1: since he probably had some bruiser security dudes hanging out
25:36
Speaker 1: with him. I would think I would be a real
25:38
Speaker 1: quick way to get, you know, get your ass kicked.
25:40
Speaker 1: Very weird relationship, I would imagine. Did we talk about
25:43
Speaker 1: what happened to the nose? We have not yet. The
25:47
Speaker 1: huggable criminal, as the prosecutors enough, yeah, the prosecution. During
25:52
Speaker 1: one of the trials, the prosecution said that he had
25:55
Speaker 1: been described in the past as a new full criminal
25:58
Speaker 1: or huggable criminal, due to his efforts to court the
26:01
Speaker 1: media and become a celebrity figure. He even went on
26:04
Speaker 1: a speaking tour of colleges in two thousand and twelve.
26:07
Speaker 1: Of course he did whatever it takes. You gotta hustle. Yeah.
26:11
Speaker 1: Seven he got sentenced to eleven years in prison for
26:13
Speaker 1: this particular crime. He only served five. Wow. Yeah, that
26:19
Speaker 1: seems pretty pretty light. But you know, he didn't stay
26:22
Speaker 1: clean for well, I don't know. It's it's hard to
26:25
Speaker 1: say what what what high profile crimes he did between
26:29
Speaker 1: then and now. I'm sure he probably laid low, but
26:33
Speaker 1: I have a feeling he still was up to no good.
26:36
Speaker 1: But um. An article from this article we're talking about
26:40
Speaker 1: from The Guardian is actually from February five of this year,
26:44
Speaker 1: and it's about a new trial for the Nose that
26:49
Speaker 1: has him up on charges of of murder. You have
26:52
Speaker 1: five counts of murder, one count of manslaughter, two counts
26:55
Speaker 1: of attempted murder, and the defense is arguing that his uh,
27:02
Speaker 1: his sisters and his ex girlfriend are conspiring to make
27:07
Speaker 1: him look bad, to stitch him up right, and he
27:09
Speaker 1: supposedly orchestrated a hit on on her his sister UM
27:15
Speaker 1: using his cell phone. UM, and the sister was able
27:19
Speaker 1: to record said calls and distribute them to the authorities.
27:23
Speaker 1: So UM, probably not the smartest criminal UM you know
27:30
Speaker 1: on the block. But yeah, but part of a pretty
27:33
Speaker 1: interesting story involving brick beer bottles. Yes, yes, that's a
27:39
Speaker 1: roundabout way, in a roundabout way, and hollyder. As we
27:43
Speaker 1: are recording this, the nose himself is still the subject
27:48
Speaker 1: of media attention there in the Netherlands. So maybe we'll
27:51
Speaker 1: we'll figure out what happens to the nose in a
27:54
Speaker 1: future episode. In the meantime, I think we should end
27:59
Speaker 1: on what happened to Freddie Heineken after the kidnapping, after
28:04
Speaker 1: attempting to change the world with this brick bottle of beer.
28:07
Speaker 1: Looks like I said a little while ago, he did
28:09
Speaker 1: withdraw from public life. He gave up his controlling interest
28:13
Speaker 1: in the Heineken Company, but according to this obituary from
28:17
Speaker 1: New York Times, he still hung around and did his
28:21
Speaker 1: kind of day to day thing right up until he
28:24
Speaker 1: passed away. Uh. He ceded control of the board of
28:28
Speaker 1: which he was the chairman, to his daughter Charlene. But
28:33
Speaker 1: he did eventually pass away from pneumonia um at the
28:37
Speaker 1: age of seventy eight, and that was on January of
28:40
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, and his legacy continues on today.
28:45
Speaker 1: Not just in beer, folks, he also had an active
28:50
Speaker 1: role in philanthropy promoting science and the arts. He founded
28:54
Speaker 1: the Doctor hp Heineken Foundation, which awards cash prizes for
28:59
Speaker 1: pioneering work in biochemistry and biophysics, and he started another
29:03
Speaker 1: foundation in his own name in the nineteen eighties that
29:07
Speaker 1: awards cash prizes to the sciences and the arts. So
29:10
Speaker 1: I think that's that's one of the most beautiful things
29:13
Speaker 1: you can do as an individual. Has paved the way
29:17
Speaker 1: for future progress. I don't know, this guy seemed like
29:20
Speaker 1: a pretty progressive, interesting um beer tycoon, you know. I
29:25
Speaker 1: really enjoyed the story, and he seemed like a guy
29:28
Speaker 1: that would have been uh an interesting dude to sit
29:31
Speaker 1: down and have a beer a hie with. Yes, yes uh,
29:34
Speaker 1: And we hope you enjoy this episode. Didn't have time
29:39
Speaker 1: to get to it today, but it reminds me of
29:41
Speaker 1: uh fascinating guy named Richard Swert who is down in Mexico,
29:46
Speaker 1: I believe, and has built his own island entirely of
29:50
Speaker 1: reusable materials. I think we might have mentioned him and
29:53
Speaker 1: weird people who built weird things. If we didn't, that
29:57
Speaker 1: was a missed opportunity. My friend, Well luck Leanal, you
30:01
Speaker 1: and I and you as well fellow Ridiculous Historians will
30:04
Speaker 1: have more and more opportunities in the future to explore
30:08
Speaker 1: strange stories throughout history. Thank you so much for tuning
30:12
Speaker 1: into the show. Of course, thank you to our super producer,
30:15
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, and thank you to our researcher Eve's Jeff
30:18
Speaker 1: Coote who assisted us with this episode. And of course
30:22
Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening to the show. Please please
30:25
Speaker 1: please do us a solid and write us a nice
30:28
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30:45
Speaker 1: if we're if we're doing well on the show, uh,
30:48
Speaker 1: the president of our company will walk by and pop
30:50
Speaker 1: a couple of finger gunds at us. That always feels
30:53
Speaker 1: so good. Um. You can also reach out to us
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Speaker 1: via social media. We're on Facebook, we have our face
31:00
Speaker 1: spook group, the Ridiculous Historians. We're always hanging out having
31:03
Speaker 1: a good time. We're on Twitter, We're on the Instagram.
31:07
Speaker 1: Still still popping around these vision boards, man, You know,
31:10
Speaker 1: we just said, it's a lot that goes into it.
31:12
Speaker 1: It's a collaboration um for the Ages, and we're working
31:17
Speaker 1: on a concept album. Those spoilers, because that's that's what
31:21
Speaker 1: it's called. It's called it's it's called spoilers. Yeah, So
31:24
Speaker 1: tune in for our next episode when we explore the
31:29
Speaker 1: very strange story of the nineteen o four Summer Olympic Games.
31:34
Speaker 1: See you next time.