by Mal Higgs, Export Development Manager at Manly Spirits
The process of designing the Manly Spirits bottle was both pleasurable and stressful - we knew we had to nail the design in order to stand out in a cluttered market. We did not have the luxury of a large design team to throw around concepts, but distillery owner Vanessa Wilton has a professional design background, so our brand, bottle design and labelling were designed in-house. With multiple awards for brand and bottle design, we have to say we’re pretty proud of our bespoke bottles.
The Inspiration
The distillery is located near Manly Beach, so we captured the spirit of Manly’s famed marine sanctuary with our custom ‘blue like an ocean wave’ bottles.
The pattern on the lower edge of the bottle is the Fibonacci pattern, a classic mathematical formula which represents perfection and balance in nature. The Fibonacci sequence can be found in shell patterns, leaves and even the perfect wave ratio. Using the Fibonacci pattern on our bottles reflects the way we strive for a perfect balance of nature’s flavors in our spirits.
Distillery owners David & Vanessa’s are passionate about scuba diving and the Eastern Blue Devil Fish, which is David’s favorite fish – which is why we chose the fish as our logo. The Eastern Blue Devil fish is an endangered species endemic to the eastern coast of Australia and can be found just off the coast of Manly Beach. We changed the fish’s stripes to look like the barrels in which we age our whiskey and named him Juno, after juniper berries.
Keeping the environment in mind
Sustainability is really important to us, so this year we've changed the way our gorgeous bespoke bottles are made to decrease CO2 emissions. How did we do this? Up until recently, the bottle plant which produced Manly Spirits bottles relied on electricity to power their glass furnaces. With the help of the plant, we've been able to implement a gas fired furnace which results in a reduction of 35-40% in carbon dioxide emissions. We're proud to say that all our Manly Spirits bottles from now will be made with this method.
Our bottles were designed with reuse in mind. After you’ve finished drinking your favorite Manly Spirits product, the bottles can be cut down and reused as candles or glassware. If you're in Australia, we also encourage people to bring their used bottles back to the distillery for a refill by offering a $10 discount for bottle refills.
The Manly Spirits bottle reflects the level of care and thought that permeates everything we do - by embracing multiple elements of nature in our packaging and keeping sustainability in mind, the bottle belies a spirit that will transport the drinker back to a beautiful day on the Australian coast.
