Bulleit opens immersive bar pop-up

Earlier this week (7 November), Bulleit Frontier Whiskey opened the Bulleit Limitless Lounge in Los Angeles.

The launch is part of the Diageo-owned brand’s Bulleit Pioneer Project – a multi-year commitment to championing and amplifying those breaking new ground in culture.

The Bulleit Limitless Lounge combined art, design, cocktails, music and projection mapping technology. In the space, the walls, furniture and floor changed from one scene to another while guests enjoyed cocktails designed to accompany the visual experience.

To create the four scenes – which are based around nature, art, music and imagination – Bulleit partnered with Optical Animal, an immersive media agency.

Optical Animal created the audio and visual experience by combining a variety of visual styles and a textured soundscape.

The agency also worked with collaborators including Emmy Award-winning artist, illustrator and animator Mike Perry and muralist duo BoogieREZ.

Music duo Bronze Whale contributed an original track for the music scene, while non-profit organisation American Forest contributed to the nature scene.

Mixologist Crystal Mendoza created four cocktails for the lounge, each inspired by elements shown in the scenes.

The nature scene featured a luminescent forest growing slowly. As night fell in the forest, the sound of insects and rain enveloped the space.

The scene was accompanied by a Sherry Cobbler-style cocktail, with notes of slight orange nutty notes, served in a mushroom glass and on a tray with fake moss and leaves.

The art scene saw the room enveloped in BoogieREZ’s graffiti with sounds of spray paint cans, paint rollers and brushes interspersed with the voices of the artists talking about their creative process.

Accompanying the art scene was a spirit-forward split-based cocktail with a split base of Bulleit Bourbon and Bulleit Rye, with glassware including edible spray paint.

The music scene features colourful audio visualisations to match Bronze Whale’s track ‘Good Enough’. It is paired with a ‘bright, refreshing’ cocktail that ‘imitates what it feels like to be at a concert’. The glassware included a multi-coloured light to illuminate the crushed ice.

The imagination scene spotlighted Mike Perry’s colourful, abstract shapes and patterns, paired with a Bulleit Bourbon-based carbonated cocktail featuring edible glitter and custom-engraved ice.

Jesse Damashek, senior vice president of whiskies and liqueurs at Diageo said: “The Bulleit Limitless Lounge translates the essence of the Bulleit Pioneer Project into a physical and accessible activation through a reimagined bar that pushes the boundaries of what a bar environment can be.

‘‘We set out to design an experience with the power to unlock inspiration in those who experience this incredible, reimagined space.

“I’m proud that our team of amazing pioneering partners have built a mind-bending, boundary-pushing, immersive experience that inspires awe and awakens the imagination of all who enter it.”

Bulleit Bourbon was the most popular whisky on US e-commerce platform Drizly in the past year.