John F. Kennedy's Favorite Beer Came In An Iconic Green Bottle

John F. Kennedy was a Boston blue blood through and through, and the epitome of a midcentury bon vivant. So you might think of him as a champagne-swilling kind of guy. He did, indeed, enjoy it, and former Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee related that the only time he ever saw JFK intoxicated was at a White House party where he sprayed the room with bubbly. Cocktails were also among the 35^th president's favorite drinks (he enjoyed both Bloody Marys and daiquiris), but he liked drinking beer, too. The Dutch brand Heineken was a particular favorite of his.

Heineken may be one of the top-selling beers in America, but these days, many people consider it pretty mid. Back in the day, though, everyone and their cat had yet to open a craft brewery. Therefore, Heineken and other green-bottle European imports were considered pretty special. So it was exactly the kind of brand you might expect them to crack open at the White House. If he hadn't died tragically some 21 years before Sam Adams Brewery was founded, though, we like to think he'd eventually have switched to his hometown beer. (His successor Lyndon Johnson was said to have been a big fan of Texas-brewed Pearl.)

One reason many people don't share John F. Kennedy's fondness for Heineken is that green bottle. Green bottles don't keep out the light nearly as well as brown ones (although they're somewhat better than clear ones), and light exposure can cause beer to turn sour. This leads to beer in both clear and green bottles developing what some call a "skunky" taste. Even so, Heineken is probably wise to stick with green glass because that color is so strongly associated with its branding.

It's been known since the 1930s that brown bottles are a better choice for beer, but there seems to have been a brown-glass shortage in Europe after World War II. For this reason, breweries switched to green glass, and the color soon became associated with European imports. That lent green bottles a certain cachet, which may be one reason many brands retain the green glass to this day. What's more, the flavor, skunky though it may be, is something Heineken fans like JFK have learned to know and love. For a superior version of the beer, however, you may want to opt for Heineken in a can instead of a bottle. Although cans may look less fancy, they do a far better job of protecting beer from light damage. As a result, Heineken and other beers tend to taste better from cans than bottles.