Union Grove Distillery

Union Grove Distillery is a family run farm licensed craft distillery located deep within the Catskill Mountains in Arkville NY. Union Grove needed innovative packaging design and integrative branding for their new and evolving product lines. The logo design would represent the distillery’s brand as a whole, and secondary labels were needed for each specific product line.

Starting with their main logo, we designed it to evoke the feeling of an old historical New York marker sign one might see driving throughout the historic Catskills. The logo design would represent the distillery’s brand as a whole, marketing materials, branded apparel such as T-shirts and hats, as well as its main label on their product.  Secondary labels were needed for each product line that were specific to each product but retained similar traits for consistency.

The logo design is the main brand for the distillery and is the umbrella with product specific labels underneath. Although the product labels vary based on color and icons, the overall design was consistant giving the distillery a secondary, reinforced visual strategy.

In order for the labels to be approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau we had to design a unique branded product label while meeting regulatory guideline. Those include conveying brand name, name and address, alcohol content, health warning statement, net contents, and the alcohol’s class/type designation. This information is required and the labels must be submitted and approved before they can be sold.

We also had to design the labels to fit the bottles that had an unusual historic shape. The main label was fairly straight forward because it was applied only on the top front. The real challenge came with the product labels because they went around not only an elliptical shaped bottle, but also a bottle that is slightly tapered in width from top to bottom. When the product specific label is applied, the front section must be horizontally level for legibility and the back section must be vertically level when the two ends meet for the appearance of quality. After a few calculations later, the product labels were designed with the top line slightly longer than the bottom to appear level around the circumference. In addition, all labels had to be resized for the various types of bottle sizes, which meant only more calculations!

Union Grove Distillery offers four spirits: Vly Creek Vodka made from New York apples and wheat, Catskill Mountain Maple Spirit made with Tree Juice Maple Syrup, firGin made from local Balsam fir and Norway Spruce trees, and Drie Brook Rye Whiskey that is aged in a barrel for one year. All product labels conveyed the product specific information but retained a consistant design. The product information was always printed in the same location on the label (product name, alcohol content, net contents, etc.). But, each product label had a specific color scheme that included the right side of the label and the icon representing the product and always supported the main logo color, the Union Grove blue.