Who doesn’t know them: the azure water siphons so popular as interior decoration? They evoke the nostalgic atmosphere of Parisian cafés from the belle époque, the ‘beautiful’ period around 1900. This is not exactly the association we have with the ultra-Dutch town of Aalsmeer.

Yet this siphon bears the text: ‘K. van den Heuvel Aalsmeer, telephone 62, Speciality in Heineken beers, electr.[ical] Mineral Water Factory.’ The phone number has only 2 digits, which corresponds with the same period, around the turn of the century. Kommer van den Heuvel indeed had a business on Dorpsstraat in Aalsmeer from 1912: first a pub and beer bottling plant, later an off-licence with a mineral water factory. He was listed as Heineken’s chief agent from 1946 onwards.

History

In 2004, at the 100th anniversary of his business, Van den Heuvel’s grandson, the retired liquor store owner Kommer Baarsen, recounted how his grandparents started out with a pub at 48 Dorpsstraat. There, his grandfather sold beer from the Zuid-Hollandsche Bierbrouwerij (ZHB) in The Hague, in those days also known as bad-tasting ‘hospital beer’. A competing establishment on Aalsmeerderdijk opposite his pub sold Heineken’s, for which his grandfather did not have a licence. The fact that the publican was a little too fond of his own liquor did not help his business. Shortly after the Second World War, Van den Heuvel went to the Heineken’s head office in Amsterdam in person and secured permission to sell its beer as well.