Pint and three quarters of liquid diesel in the van (4)

I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Times for the Times have:

MIL{k} (three quarters of liquid) + first letter of (in the van) DIESEL I saw what was going on here, but what was the meaning of pint here, and what was the meaning of MILD? I considered WIND (WIN{e}+D) as well, but finally decided that if there were bitters, there could also be milds. Might have taken me 7-8 minutes to get this one.