Goodradigbee Distillers

Designer: Lucy Edison
Creative Director/Writer: Peter Ogden
Photographer: Ange Maloney
Location: Australia
Project Type: Produced
Client: Goodradigbee Distillers
Product Launch Location: Australia
Packaging Contents: Spirits/liquor
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Glass bottle
Printing Process: Digital printing

Goodradigbee Distillers aims to be the first truly contemporary distillery that eschews the age-old traditions surrounding single malts.

Lucy Edison, designer: “The Goodradigbee River, in the Snowy Mountains of NSW, Australia, is where John, the founder, learned to fly-fish as a boy. This remote river has guided the essence of Goodradigbee Distillers, so capturing the river itself within the logo was crucial. The logo not only forms a cube to reflect the brand’s unique stance, it’s also designed to help people phonetically pronounce the brand name. And the bottle itself is a cube.”

Peter Ogden, Creative Director: “I was writing copy and developing the brand in Sydney, Australia, while Lucy, our designer, was in lockdown in the UK. Ange Maloney, our photographer, is based in Newcastle, two hours north of Sydney, so that was a bit easier to wrangle. We shot everything in John’s garage, not that you’d notice from Ange’s beautiful images. The background images of the Snowy were large-scale prints of my own landscape photography. Necessity is the mother of invention, so when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. But when life gives you COVID:19, we figured you make Single Malt and gin.”

We have created packaging for three variants of single malt and two different gins. Vodka and rum are waiting in the wings.

John O’Connor, Founder: “I remember thinking: Wouldn’t it be great if you could age a single malt quickly? Then another idea: What if you could increase the ratio of wood-to-spirit…wouldn’t that age it faster? Only one way to find out…so I designed an Australian Ironbark Red wooden cube, as it has a larger surface area than a barrel. I put diagonal vanes in it to increase the surface area even further. The rest, as they say…is now bottled.”

The bottle, and everything about the distillery, is based a round a cube – logo, maturation cubes, social posts, POS, etc. We also left as much of the bottle clear so you could see as much of the purity within as possible.