November 2011
1 post
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The PDT Cocktail Book
Ever since the media first caught wind of PDT’s hotdog-hideaway, fans have been piling in from all over the world to sip old fashioneds and order kimchi-slathered Momofuku sausages from their secret Crif Dogs menu. As one of the innovators in the field of mixology in NYC, a field that has become notably over-crowded recently, it only makes sense that the folks over at PDT continue to...
October 2011
3 posts
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ABSOLUT Pinstripe Decanter
Hand-blown by Swedish glass artisans in Reijmyre, this is not your average ABSOLUT bottle. Limited to a run of 800, the stylized crystal decanter comes with two matching pinstriped tumblers and is sure to skew towards the higher end of the iconic vodka brand’s price range. Design aside, this is a nice attempt by a vodka category to reclaim a classic bartop...
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September 2011
2 posts
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Ryesenberg Rye - Concept Packaging
New from Israeli designer David Riesenberg comes a brilliantly nuanced piece of concept work concerning his own brand of imaginary rye whiskey. Despite the obvious aesthetic advantages to Mr. Riesenberg’s design, it yields a great deal of ethos as well. Suitable for small run premium batches, according to the designer, “the label is a piece of the actual barrel the whiskey was...
August 2011
7 posts
5 tags
Veuve Clicquot Origami Ice Bucket
New from Veuve Clicquot comes a brilliant little promotional piece in the form of an origami ice bucket. Constructed from fully foldable, water-resistant material, the bucket is the brainchild of the aesthetically-oriented champagne brand and Belgian designer Mathias van de Walle. Complete with instructions and a bottle of bubbly, this fully-foldable chilling device can be easily carried...
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ABSOLUT x Gareth Pugh
British goth-chic designer Gareth Pugh has recently teamed up with ABSOLUT MODE EDITION to participate in a redesign of the iconic ABSOLUT bottle. Having served as a blank canvas for the likes of Andy Warhol, Kurt Wenner and Spike Lee, the Swedish brand’s bottle serves doubly as a container and a piece of art, especially when designed as special limited editions. For his turn at the...
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Emergency Cocktail Station
New from urbancase comes a witty, tongue-in-cheek nod to the classic “emergency” first aid kit that every school, office and home has tucked away in a corner somewhere. Crafted completely out of a smooth, beautiful lacquered MDF and designed by Darin Montgomery, this emergency kit caters towards a different kind of crisis: the urgent need for a hand-crafted cocktail. Providing...
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ABSOLUT BLANK Artist Series
The ABSOLUT Vodka bottle’s kaleidoscopic range of iterations in print ads, short film pieces and throughout copious collaborations have made the liquor brand’s basic container a valuable asset and a veritable canvas for aspiring artists across the globe. Honing in on a marketing opportunity, ABSOLUT selected 18 creatives to get involved with ABSOLUT BLANK - a project that pretty...
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Watch
New from Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, an organic produce brand dedicated to “work marked by fine craft and intellectual rigor” that offers a slew of culturally-relevant, anti-industrialization products, comes Rhuby. A rhubarb spirit, Rhuby’s creation was inspired by the tale of how the deliciously bitter root vegetable found its way into the US in the first place: brought over in...
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Hangar One Vodka Blimp Tour
Hangar One Vodka has long been a favorite of mine. From their quirky, seasonal flavored offerings (Buddha’s Hand Citron, anyone?) to the eponymous vintage airplane hangar that serves as their headquarters in Alameda, California - Hangar One is not your run-of-the-mill liquor brand. As the company has purposely eschewed standard publicity tactics such as club partnerships and...
July 2011
7 posts
1 tag
Could tequila be the "wonder fuel" of the future? →
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Redhook Brewery Rebrand
Redhook Brewery is an interesting case study in the ever-shifting world of craft beer and microbreweries. A bit of an anomaly, Redhook was not started in Brooklyn but rather Seattle. It’s a microbrew, historically, yet the brand is almost 30 years old and owned partly by Anheuser-Busch. So, what does a slightly corporatized, ever-expanding beer company with a history of local...
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Leopards + Lions Bitters
With the cocktail revolution in full force, it makes sense that a line of artisanal bitters would pop up. Hand-manufactured in - where else? - Brooklyn, Leopards + Lions is leagues ahead of the rest of the Angostura-imitators. Why? Because with a product like bitters it all comes down to quality and packing, and Leopards + Lions has got both. Bottled in authentic 19th century apothecary jars,...
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Champagne's Servants Join the Masters →
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Recipe: Liberté Cocktail
Although Hennessy Cognac is best known for being commissioned by Napoleon himself, the great Emperor shouldn’t get all the credit for Revolutionary-era drinking. Bastille Day approaches rapidly and, although most Americans couldn’t care less, I am a bit of a closeted Francophile and feel the need to honor the beginning of the great, bloody proletariat Revolution (the bourgeois...
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June 2011
11 posts
4 tags
Champagne "Column" Glasses
For those persnickety consumers who always wanted to serve champagne vertically but never had the proper glassware to build the glistening, bubbling towers of their dreams -designer Sebastian Bergne has finally offered a solution: The Column Glass. Tongue-in-cheek melodrama aside, these containers are actually quite innovative and equal parts aesthetically appealing and functionally...
6 tags
Great King St. Blended Scotch Whisky
Designed by my favorite firm, Stranger & Stranger, and conceived as an entry-level offering for Compass Box Whisky Co. (whose “Lady Luck” product and packaging I featured back in February), Great King St. is a beautiful-looking, heritage-driven spirit brand that has been executed and launched onto the market flawlessly. The vintage typeface and color palette make the whisky...
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Denim Demon Schnapps - written by me for Hypebeast →
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Hendrick's Gin Mobile
Hendrick’s is no stranger to “curiously” quirky ad campaigns. Originally promoting their rose and cucumber-infused gin as “not for everyone” was a ballsy out-of-the-gate maneuver, but it worked wondrously. Now a globally-acknowledged luxury spirit brand with an esoteric sense of humor, Hendrick’s has poured more money into another funky form of publicity:...
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Original MOONSHINE
Created by barbecue chef Adam Perry Lang and business partner Chuck Miller (a third generation moonshine distiller ), Original MOONSHINE represents a high-design, hipster-targeting take on a notoriously lowbrow product. The liquor is handcrafted from estate-grown corn and distilled four times in Prohibition-era copper pot stills rather than the...
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New York's 41 "Best" Cocktails According to Time... →
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Watch“Traditional” advertising at its best, from Amstel Light. These guys really paint!
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Still Liquor
Nice brand identity for Seattle’s Still Liquor by NYC-based design director Javas Lehn. With the speakeasy trend essentially a given these days, Still offers a refreshing detour from dark, candle-lit enclaves full of crushed velvet, taxidermy and tassels. Instead, the space of the bar is open, airy and furnished in tarnished metals and wood. In order to complement the prohibition...
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1800 Tequila Essential Artists - Series 3 "Lucha...
Although 1800 may be best known for their swivel-top design that doubles as a shot glass (and has been lauded by Michael Imperioli AKA Christopher from The Sopranos) - its also been engaging aspiring artists from around the world to design limited edition runs of its blanco tequila. By collaborating with contemporary and ethnic artists, 1800 emphasizes both its Mexican heritage and...
May 2011
10 posts
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Heineken Limited Edition
Once again embracing design, music and the global fashion scene - Heineken has begun to roll out a limited edition set of cans pairing metropolitan skylines with instruments and equipment including an electric guitar, drums, headphone & a turntable. Cool stuff!
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Kanon Organic Vodka
Hailing from Sweden (like one if its infamous counterparts, SVEDKA), Kanon Organic Vodka has launched itself onto the wine and spirits scene lately with a full-scale rebranding campaign, a new website and its very own Coachella party.
Organic vodkas have been around for awhile now, but they tend to position themselves as earthy and responsible rather than cool and modern. Kanon,...
107 Spring Drinks "in Bloom" at Grubstreet →
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"The Bender as Botox"
Provocateur, one of the most faux-notorious and exclusive Meatpacking destinations for young clubbers set on conspicuous consumption, is literally stirring up controversy with a new cocktail program that supposedly doubles as a day at the spa. Since the health merits of alcohol have been debated for centuries now - at once both supposedly curative (one...
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The Ice Cube Review
With the world of mixology expanding to the point of no return, people of all tastes and persuasions are beginning to attempt to build finely-crafted cocktails at home. Much like how some famous Japanese chefs swear to their death that the key to perfect sushi is the rice, much time and attention has recently been spent discussing the importance of ice...
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Negroni piece over at ACL →
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Tempus Fugit Spirits & Absinthe
Despite a slightly hard to navigate website, Tempus Fugit is doing a great job in the cutting-edge field of importing newly legalized absinthes to the US. In addition to the fickle absinthe market, they’ve broken into the field of rare and exotic liqueurs as well, importing such peculiarities as the enticing Liqueur de Violettes pictured below and...
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Dos Equis' "Feast of the Brave" Truck
Going along with their brilliant “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign concept, in order to celebrate Cinco de Mayo Dos Equis has launched a food truck in Manhattan that will be serving out some particularly interesting dishes all week. The truck serves free tacos filled with the likes of tongue, ostrich, veal brain and crickets created by Chef Domingo Garza to pair along...
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WatchMinivegas recently created this interactive mirror in Milan for Heineken that allowed users to create light art on site with their own body gestures. The effort utilized the creative collective’s proprietary graphics framework Atlantis, described on the Minivegas site as:
“A set of user interface components suitable for the rapid assembly of artist tools, which together with a persistent data...
April 2011
3 posts
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Marx Design Wine
Ryan Marx, the head of a design firm in New Zealand that specializes in branding and packaging, came up with these wines as a promotional piece in order to differentiate his company from the names of some other famous Marxes. A witty idea with a great execution - what client (or future client) wouldn’t love to receive a bottle of wine in the mail instead of a press packet.
...
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Smirnoff Caipiroska
Not sure how these taste, as pre-mixed alcoholic drinks tend to be fairly nasty. Nonetheless, the peelable bottles for Smirnoff Caipiroska (designed by JWT Brasil) sure are scene-stealers. I particularly like that they come packaged in a wooden crate like the lemons and limes they are imitating. Great idea!
March 2011
5 posts
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Great piece on the "Fancy Free" over at Mr. Porter →
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Recipe: Bloody Mary
I’ve been avoiding this recipe for a few reasons. First of all, everyone has their own way of making a Bloody Mary and is sure to take issue with almost everyone else’s recipe. Secondly, I’ve honestly only recently settled on what I think makes for the perfect Bloody and, finally, it’s one of my favorite cocktails - so I wanted to make sure I didn’t screw it...
4 tags
Crystal Head Vodka
Yes, Dan Aykroyd does co-own this vodka but, honestly, if he had any part in the design process then I have a newfound respect for the man. Crystal Head has been around for awhile now and is definitely in that category of ultrapremium vodkas that depend a lot more on image than they do on quality. As I have stated before, I really don’t think there’s any difference between most...
2 tags
February 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Compass Box "Lady Luck" Blended Scotch Whiskey
A witty take on a traditional design by venerable house Stranger & Stranger, Compass Box’s “Lady Luck” offering is one of their most expensive and exclusive. A blend of two ancient Caol Ilas casks and a 1995 Imperial single malt, Lady Luck has a distinctly complex flavor of smoke and citrus. The label is what makes this product...
