I eventually started to focus on the aspect of barrel selection itself. The process of picking a single barrel of whiskey to bottle and sell is often a secretive process. There’s either a clandestine meetup at a distillery for a select few, or samples are discreetly ferried across the country. The barrels themselves that are good enough to be offered for single barrel selection are often stored amongst their common brethren, in warehouses only known by the distiller. These thoughts further added to the air of mystery.

All of this reflection on secretive selection brought images to mind of secret societies, hidden vaults, and whiskey thieves. I developed an idea that focused around a key and a keyhole, using black and gold as primary colors to bring to mind wealth and treasure, but the typography used and excess of copy kept the vibe from feeling too luxurious. A hand is seen picking a barrel out of the keyhole, which adds to the story that this specific barrel was truly hand picked. I used information as part of the design, and packed as much informative copy as I could into the keyhole shape. Below are a few iterations of the early design we settled on before the final label was completed.

Along the way, I thought it might be a good idea to also develop a simple logo that could represent the entire project when the full labels could not be used (such as for social media posts). I wanted to distill the motif of the labels into a simple image, and after going through numerous iterations, ultimately ended up with a simplified keyhole logo. I was able to include the logo in the label design as well, and CBRC was appreciative of the extra asset to use. Psst! – Look closely and you can see the hidden Glencairn shapes in the key design.