House of Koshu “Rainbow Set”

Submitted by Mark Blackwell July 29th, 2010
Certifikitsch Winner

Here are two lovely one ounce mini-bottles from the House of Koshu “Rainbow Set” of flavored Japanese liqueurs from the ’60s, featuring wooden Kokeshi-style doll heads. I have the Sakura (cherry liqueur) and the Mizuiro (blue curacao), but evidently they originally came in a seven-bottle boxed set (as seen in the pic below found on the net), which also included Mikam (mandarin orange), Banana (banana), Reishu (melon), Midori (menthe), and Sumire (violet). Apparently these seven-inch mini-bottles from the House of Koshu “Rainbow Set” were also given out back in the day to travellers flying first class to Japan.

6 Responses to “House of Koshu “Rainbow Set””

  1. Allee Willis

    I’ve seen these bottles and love them. One of my parents’ friends used to have these in his rec room. I always wanted to play with them but was very discouraged. I used to pick them up when they left the room anyway.

    Boxed set is beautiful!

    • Steele0174

      Hello,

      I have a complete set of the House of Koshu “rainbow set” of 7 liqueurs”. The box is in decent shape although there are some tears. The bottles are in perfect shape and unopened. Please let me know if you would like to purchase them from me. You can email me at [email protected] with your best offer and we can discuss shipping or pickup if you are near me (Virginia). Thank you….Danny

    • Mark Blackwell

      ah yes, i somehow missed that post – you have the green one, nice! so between the two of us we have 3/7 of the koshu set! let’s find the rest!

  3. Mark Milligan

    What do you think the flight time was from Los Angeles to Tokyo in the 1960’s?

    I love these things!

    I want to imagine flying first class when travel by air was still considered sophisticated and cool.

    Especially to Tokyo before they opened Narita.

  4. Mark Milligan

    Interesting trivia: My pilot friend with United just told me (he flies San Fran-Narita, Japan) that in the 60’s, the cruise speed wasn’t any faster, it was just that the planes couldn’t go as far on the fuel.

    They went in Boeing 707’s from L.A. to guess where?

    Anchorage.

    Then to Tokyo.

    The time was longer only because of the lay-overs.

    L.A. Anchorage. Tokyo. Plenty of time for some drinks.