Your whisky got older and better. Your label just got older.
A brand proposal for Glenarra Distillery, kept in the house ledger.
A new identity drawn from your own 1846 ledger, a six-bottle range, a launch film shot in the still house and the visitor centre to match. $680,000, fixed, ready for the Glenarra open day on 4 June 2027.
Four of you sign this. Here's what each of you told us.
Written down the day we heard it, in the order we heard it.
I won't be the generation that sold the family name to a mood board.Folio VI
If the label says something my stills don't do, my name goes nowhere near it.Folio VIII
Tell me what we pay and when, and make it the number we finish on.Folio IX
Under all four is the same worry. A premium rebrand that makes Glenarra look bought. Every folio from here answers it.
Age the label to eighteen and watch what goes.
Drag the cask stave, or press play. Every change has a reason written beside it.
Today's label.
Designed in 1994 and added to every year since.
Six bottles that read as one family from across the shop.
The label sheet for the range. This stepper and the one in the account are the same control.
Bottles in this scope
Each one is a label, carton, closure and gift tube. $38,000 a bottle.
Ninety seconds, written before anyone books a camera.
Two days in March while the stills are running. Nothing in it happens anywhere but Glenarra.
Five forty. Hamish is in before the stills are.
00:00 to 00:14Will my grandchildren still know it's ours?
CatrionaManaging Director, sixth generation
Yes, because most of what we're changing arrived in the last thirty years. We read every label in your archive back to 1871. The stag came in 1994 with a London agency, and the gold came with it. What's truly yours, we keep or bring back.
Kept
- The name GlenarraOn every label since 1871
- 1846Now part of the wordmark itself
- The ArraNamed on every bottle again
Brought back
- Your founder's capitalsRedrawn from the 1846 ledger
- House greenYour 1928 labels were green, and three survive
- The ledger lineCask and warehouse, as they were first written
Retired
- The stag1994, from the London agency
- The gold ground1994
- The award banner2009
- The tartan band2012
The family signs off at each of the four gates on the calendar. Nothing moves on without your initials.
Will it hold the shelf at $150?
DanielHead of Marketing
Premium gets decided at three metres, before anyone reads a word. Today's 18 sits in an aisle of gold and red and disappears into it. Switch the shelf and find Glenarra.
Today's 18 is the fourth bottle from the left. Most shoppers in our pre-read walked past it.
Will the label tell the truth about my spirit?
HamishMaster Distiller, 31 years at Glenarra
Yes, and it's written into the contract. These three rules are clause 7, and they bind Kindling for as long as we work for you.
You sign off every word on the bottle and in the film.If you won't put your initials to a claim, it doesn't print and it doesn't air. That covers the back label, the carton and every line of voiceover.
Cask numbers and warehouses are real.Your team sends the ledger line for each batch. We set it. Nobody at Kindling picks a number because it looks good.
The film shows only what happens here.Your stills, your warehouse, your people. No hired hands, no smoke machine, no copper we brought in a van.
Words we've retired
- Finest
- Smooth
- Legendary
- Award winning
- Hand crafted
Words you've earned
- Warehouse 4
- Cask 4127
- Nine hours in the still
- Arra water
- Bottled at 46 percent
What do we pay, when, and is it the final number?
PriyaFinance Director
Every line in the account is a fixed fee. The number you sign is the number you pay, in four payments tied to gates you'll see coming on the calendar. These figures follow whatever you choose in the account below.
The account, line by line.
Strike any line and it tells you what you lose. The total is the exact fee.
Discovery and archive dig
Five weeks. Two of them on site, scanning the 1846 ledger, interviewing forty people from the still house to your distributors, and auditing shelves in six markets.
If you strike it. We work from what you send us. It's four weeks quicker, but the wordmark can't come from the ledger unless someone scans it.
Identity system
The wordmark redrawn from the founder's capitals, house green, the cask colours, the ledger line, type, tone of voice and a guide your printers and distributors can follow.
If you strike it. We design packaging on today's name, tidied up. You lose the ledger story that holds the range together, and we'd advise against it.
Packaging range
Label, carton, closure and gift tube for each bottle, with printer's proofs signed off on press.
If you strike it. You get the identity and the guide, and your printers apply it to the labels themselves. Each bottle you remove is one fewer label on the sheet above.
Launch film
Two days at Glenarra in March. One 90-second film, three 30-second cuts and six verticals for launch week.
If you strike it. The launch runs on stills and the new bottles, and the trade presentation loses its opener.
Visitor-centre signage
Wayfinding, the still-house story panels and the shop's graphics, installed by 28 May.
If you strike it. Visitors buy the new bottle in a shop that still looks like the old one, until you refit it yourselves.
We'd sign all five with six bottles. If something has to move, move the signage to next year. It's the only line that doesn't touch launch day, so it's the cut we'd make.
Discovery and the identity system are the same in every version of this account. Adding bottles or the film buys more output from the same team at the same standard. Travel, the film crew and printer's proofs are inside these figures.
From the first visit to the open day.
Starts 16 November. Pauses for the Christmas shutdown. Finishes with the bottle on your own shop shelf on 4 June.
The terms, in plain words.
Six drawers. Open the ones you care about.
Every fee is fixed
Each line in the account is a fixed fee. If a stage takes us longer than planned, that's ours to carry. The only way the total moves is if you add or strike a line.
Two rounds of changes at every gate
Each gate includes two rounds of changes. After that, extra work is $1,800 a day, and we agree the days with you before we start.
You own all of it
On final payment Glenarra owns everything we make, including the redrawn wordmark, the type files and every frame of film. The ledger never leaves the distillery. We scan it on site.
The master distiller's veto
Hamish, or whoever holds the role, signs off every claim on pack and in the film. If he won't sign it, it doesn't run. This is clause 7.
Pausing
You can pause for up to 60 days at any gate, for production or for family reasons, without a fee. The calendar moves by the length of the pause.
What isn't included
Printing the bottles and cartons themselves stays with your printers. Media spend for the film stays with your media budget. Everything else in the account is inside the figure.
Four questions we can't answer for you.
Can the 1846 ledger page itself appear on the Twenty-Five, or only the lettering drawn from it?A family call. It changes the Twenty-Five's label and nothing else.
Is the Fifteen staying in the core range?If it goes, the stepper drops to five bottles and the total drops $38,000.
Does the new price go live on launch day, or once the old stock sells through?It decides whether your shop holds both labels side by side for a summer.
Who keeps the initials stamp when Hamish retires?We've designed it to pass on. The family should choose how.
Initial the ledger and we're in the still house on 16 November.
Initials by 13 November hold the start date and the March filming days while the stills are running. If anything here needs a conversation first, reply and we'll come to you.
Kindling × Glenarra
Catriona, for the family and the board