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The top 10 award-winning bottle designs

From quirky and fun bottles with illustrated labels to elegant and refined crystal decanters – these are the award-winning spirits bottle designs that have caught our attention.

SB present our pick of 2017’s award-winning bottle designs

The Spirits Business held its annual Design & Packaging Masters last month, where an experienced panel of judges recognised the best bottlings in the business.

Looking across multiple categories, from Scotch whisky to gin, Tequila to vodka, a wide range of bottles were awarded the top accolades of Master and Gold medals for their quality.

The individual scores of each entrant have not been revealed, however these are 10 of the highest rated medalists in the competition, in no particular order.

While some expressions are not standard priced, our judges have given each bottle listed here the seal of approval for offering excellent quality within their respective price categories.

Click through to the following pages to view the top 10 award-winning bottle designs of 2017.

Roku

Price: €25.00

Beam Suntory’s first Japanese gin brand Roku grabbed a Master medal in the Gin category. Judges were impressed with its “well-executed” appearance that clearly communicates a brand narrative.

Bottled at 43% abv, Roku – meaning ‘six’ in Japanese – contains six Japanese botanicals, including sakura flower, sakura leaf, yuzu peel, sencha tea, gyokuro tea and sansho pepper, along with eight other botanicals traditionally used in gin.

Woodford Reserve Rye

Price: US$33.99

Brown-Forman’s Woodford Reserve Rye swiped a Gold, winning praise for its “confident” appearance that is “clean and effective”. “This design is very impactful when you see it on the shelf,” said one judge. Released in 2015, Woodford Reserve Rye is the third expression in the brand’s core range. The Borbon has a mash bill contains 53% rye and contains five sources of flavour, including grain, fruit, wood, spice and sweet aromatics.

Private Collection Glenlivet 1943 by Gordon & MacPhail

Price: £30,000

Gordon & MacPhail’s Private Collection Glenlivet 1943 secured a Gold medal in the Scotch flight. Of the expression, one judge noted: “This really does show a love of the liquid inside, and it avoids being gimmicky.”

The Glenlivet single malt whisky was distilled on 14 January 1943, a key date in the timeline of World War Two. The whisky is presented in a hand-blown decanter adorned with gold engravings of the land surrounding the distillery and individually numbered with a certificate of authenticity signed by Rankin.

Pickering’s Gin Baubles

Price: £30.00

Pickering’s Gin Baubles swiped a Master medal in the Gin category, for being a charming product that got judges cooing. “In a decade where storytelling and nostalgia is so important, this is great,” said one judge. “I love that the brand took the time to add some humour.” Available in packs of six, each bauble is filled with a 50ml measure of gin and comes complete with a ribbon.

Woolf Sung Collection ‘The Hunter’

Price: £950.00

The judges found a Master in the form of the Woolf Sung Collection ‘The Hunter’ which wowed judges with its intricate and sophisticated modern image. One judge said: “This is art but it also has all the whisky geek information. It’s a gentle statement.” The first release in the collection, The Hunter, was distilled at the Highland Glenglassaugh distillery in 1972 and bottled in 2013. Only 160 bottles of the whisky have been released.

Boukman Botanical Rhum

Price: US$45.00

A Master medal was also awarded to Boukman Botanical Rhum, whose design was praised for its ingenuity and attention to detail. “The colour is just amazing and really communicates the gin’s botanical concept,” said a member of the judging panel. It is distilled from the fresh juice of sugar cane, and infused with botanicals and barks, many of them native to Haïti and foraged in the wild.

Invergordon 42 Year Old

Price: £106.95

That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s Invergordon 42 Year Old claimed a Master medal in the Scotch flight. “It’s shamelessly geeky and fun and the label is totally in line with the product,”  one judge noted.

The single grain from the Invergordon distillery has been independently bottled by That Boutique-y Whisky Company which bottles single malts, single grains and Bourbons from a variety of distilleries.

Angostura 5 Year Old

 

Price: US$25.99

The five-year-old expression from Angostura grabbed a Gold medal in the rum flight. One judge noted the new bottle shape across the range:”it is becoming a classic – the touch points are perfect.”

The Trinidadian gold rum is a blend of light and heavy molasses-based rums aged for five years in charred American oak Bourbon barrels.

Fog Point

Price: US$125.00

Vodka brand Fog Point was bestowed with a Master medal in the Vodka category for having a “very playful” and “not overly branded” design. The “fog-to-bottle” vodka has been created using “fog-caught” water from San Francisco Bay. It is presented in an “innovative” bottle featuring a netted neck wrap and a cartographic back label charting the locations of the San Francisco fog catchers.

Everleigh Bottling Co Famous Four Gift Set

Price: US$68.00

A Gold medal also followed in the Pre­-Mixed round, with Everleigh Bottling Co’s Famous Four Gift Set. “It just feels like something that would be very satisfying to open,” said one judge. “It’s a great gift.”

The set feature four classic cocktails including The Martini, The Negroni, The Manhattan and The Old Fashioned.

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