Ocean – Mountain Gin Series

One of the few distilleries on earth to grow their own grain, Auld Distillery’s whisky, gin and seasonal spirits are created with ingredients sourced from the Auld Farm and surrounding local area. Always looking to what’s next, the distillery pushes the boundaries with ingredients and methods, to produce unique products. This approach, combined with the farm-to-glass production process is a hit with consumers seeking new and authentic drinking experiences. Spurred on by their customers who were enamoured by the brand’s stories of people and place, the distillery developed a trio of gins inspired by the memories and materials of the local area.

Tracking a journey across the region, the gin trio became a portrait of terroir from mountain, ocean and grassy plain. From the ocean, the Aulds sourced the brine from bluff oysters – the truest taste of the perilous southern seas. From the grassy plains, hay was fermented and steeped to capture the nostalgic sweetness of toiling the land.  And from the mountain ranges, came wild botanicals to lent a spicy freshness that evoked jagged rocks and face-whipping winds.

With a vision to sell the gin as a three-pack experience, the task for the packaging design was to capture the essence of this journey through the South. We engaged New Zealand artist Jane Blackmore – known for her sweeping landscapes – to produce a trio of works inspired by each gin and its origin. With the mood and colours expressing the uniqueness of each locale, these three artworks served as the backdrop for each bottle label, and for the outer box design.

The driving essence of the Auld Distillery brand is Curiosity and Exploration, and with the knowledge that our audience delight in discovery, we designed the packaging to take them through an unboxing that resembles a miniature journey of discovery.

An outer box, with its background of bold green artwork, features a curiosity-grabbing, less-is-more approach to its messaging: “Ocean-mountain, Southland Gin”, and the brand’s Seed-to-Sip stamp. The oversized logo grounds the packaging design. Printed in a glossy sculptured emboss, the effect adds an understated luxury. The typeface is functional and brutalist inspired, softened with a frond of growth on the A, to nod to the farm’s heritage of effort and growth.

On the front face, a perforated tear strip opens to reveal a second box – this time matte black, with the brand name again in high gloss. A blurb on inside of the green lid tells the story of the journey of terroir, and when the lid of the black inner box is lifted, the three gins are finally revealed: Ocean’s Keep, Endless Fields, and Summit’s Reach.