INFO
Mountain guide Kenton Cool on the summit of Mount Everest
May 2018
Colour photograph on pressed wood fibreboard
h 28 x b 35.5 x d 1.5 cm
Bottle of Heineken from Asia Pacific Breweries, carried to the summit of Mount Everest by mountain guide Kenton Cool
2018
Glass, plastic, aluminium
h. 22.5 × Ø 5.7 cm
Ain’t no mountain high enough…
The presence of Heineken® beer in remarkable places around the world has a long tradition. For instance, as early as 1964 the staff magazine Vers van ’t Vat gave extensive coverage of the Belgian–Dutch scientific expedition to the South Pole. Telegrams sent on to King Baudouin of Belgium show that this expedition was the ultimate test case for Heineken beer in cans:
‘The telegram of 19 August stated that the Heineken canned beer, notwithstanding the long voyage by sea covering no less than 17,000 kilometres — first through the tropical heat of the equator and then the cold of the Antarctic ice fields, after which our canned beer finally reached its destination by sledge — was still of excellent quality and thoroughly enjoyed when drunk.’
K2 to Mount Everest
More than half a century later it was a bottle of Heineken, type K2, that was taken to the highest place on earth. This time not by a scientific expedition but by a mountaineer with the fitting name Kenton Cool. The legendary British climber was asked to carry the bottle to the summit of Mount Everest by Michel de Carvalho, Executive Director of Heineken Holding NV, who himself reached Base Camp on the mountain. In the photo, Cool stands at the top, frozen-solid proof in hand. He couldn’t test its drinkability on the spot, but even so, this feat must have left him feeling a little light-headed — and not just because of the thin air.
Donation
Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, the wife of Michel de Carvalho, donated the photo in November 2018 to the Heineken Collection during the opening of the Heritage Quarter on the fifth floor of the Heineken Experience. It was intended as a temporary substitute for the bottle, which at that time had not yet arrived in the Netherlands from Asia. The image was also used in an advertisement with the text ‘Heineken reaches the summit of MOUNT EVEREST thanks to Kenton Cool. ’ The advert was shown for two weeks on two large digital screens in Times Square, New York.
Today, the now-empty Cool bottle is part of the Heineken Collection. Yet who actually drank the beer after it thawed, and whether its quality survived this ultimate test, remains a mystery.