Arak Kara – Lebanon

The Arak (The Liquor)

Arak’s origin is Lebanon & historically Phoenicia (1500 BC) and it is still the national drink of Lebanon since. Often made from the Marawi and Obaideh grape varieties, a center of production is the Bekaa Valley vineyards. Raw Arak is transparent in color just like water, but when you mix it with water (must be mixed) it turns into a semi-translucent milky color.

Arak is traditionally made of grapes and aniseed (the seeds of the anise plant); when crushed, their oil provides arak with a slight licorice taste. Typically, arak is a minimum of 50% alcohol by volume (ABV), and can be up to 70% ABV (126 proof). A 53% ABV is considered typical.

Arak Kara (The Brand)

Arak Kara is a new brand created at ‘web and media’ studios in Beirut – Lebanon and the 3D Bottle design and modeling by Fadi M. Abul Husen at web and media

Brand Identity

The brand identity popped up by chance as we were trying to brainstorm a brand name with the client, as we mistakenly mirrored the word Arak and instantly the client loved the name KARA, it is ARAK written backwards just like “Klim Milk”, afterwards while fishing for a typeface (font) the transition of the alphabets turned out to be the brand identity and instantly this was probably the fastest subsonic brand identity on the face of the earth that was approved in minutes, not days & months.

The Client

Rarely, you come across an open minded client who allows you to share such details, even he insisted we exhibit the design process, as the client is going to share prior to the launching of the brand; the detailed brewing / production process from the fine ingredients all the way to distillation.

This is a case that has rarely occurred and in my thirty years of design experience, I personally have seen it 3 times, so probably it occurs every 10 years. So, it is an occasion to celebrate and open a bottle ARAK KARA and say cheers to all. Enjoy!

Packaging

We are still working on the packaging and probably we will be creating a gift pack with the bottle that will include several drinking glasses (we do not call them shot glasses in lebanon as we drink Arak slowly & enjoy it with our our famous Lebanese Mezza)