A 16 year aged Old Grand-dad Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey couldn’t be placed in just any bottle. The packaging needed to honor the heritage of this storied brand while celebrating the rare liquid inside. Taking a modern heritage approach to the design, we dove into the archives, carefully selecting a unique blend of old and new design elements for inspiration. 

Boldness and prestige, inspired by the liquid inside, drove each and every design decision. We decided on a bold, stripped back and type-centric approach for a more modern look and feel that allowed the nuanced details of the overall design to sing. 

Adding some of that nuance to the brand’s wordmark, we revived and refreshed a heritage version of the Old Grand-dad logo mark that used hatching instead of a solid black fill. This, along with a subtle, graphic drop shadow added depth and richness to the pack’s use of the key brand asset.

Each piece of copy on the front of the pack was chosen to celebrate different elements of the brand’s heritage. Just beneath the logo mark, we herored the brands longevity front and center with “established 1882.” Beneath “Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey” we added a nod to the brand’s unique flavor profile with “high rye mash bill.”  At the top of the label, hugging the wordmark, the brand’s provenance was highlighted via “Clermont Kentucky.”

Violating all of these nuanced details is a bold, red age statement. The treatment for this design element was inspired by the tradition of pre-prohibition whiskey brands stamping age statements over a label. The red pops against both the rich, black type and the bright, yellow backdrop. The yellow chosen honors the brands roots, echoing the brighter, golden color of its packaging during Old Grand-dad’s glory days, a departure from the orange used today.

The necker also took inspiration from the brand’s past, drawing from an earlier version of Old Grand-dad 114’s packaging from the 80’s and 90’s. The ornate cartouche shape around the wordmark echoes this vintage pack as does the golden ribbon around the bottle’s neck. In our version, the wax seal that ties the ribbon together features a contemporary OGD monogram and the ribbon itself includes a second nod to the brand’s provenance. A second red stamped 100 violates “proof” to call attention to the fact that this whiskey was bottled at the classic 100 proof of previous Old Grand-dad releases. And finally, the bottle structure itself was chosen to mimic this same heritage bottle design.

To ensure that the overall feel of the packaging reflected the product’s significantly more premium proposition, careful consideration went into the textures and finishes that tied everything together. A subtle, raised sheen on the black type invites you to run your hand over the bold lettering. The graphic border pattern surrounding the contemporary OGD label was swapped for a more subtle, textural border of a similar design and also applied to the cartouche in the neck label. 

All in all, this bottle design exemplifies our Modern Heritage branding philosophy. It helps the Old Grand-dad brand celebrate its heritage in a bold and contemporary way while setting a new standard for the brand’s foray into prestige.