The American micro-distillery Rocker Spirits, based in Littleton, Colorado, has teamed up with O-I, a leading manufacturer of glass packaging, developed a bottle that can literally rock.
Glass helps many well-known brands to set their products apart from the competition. For premium spirits in particular, high-quality glass packaging symbolises the value of the brand - through shape, colour and special details such as embossing or engraving.
The original aim for the Rockers brand was to take the consumer back to a simpler time when people made more things with their hands and took pride in their craftsmanship. Glass was therefore the right material for the Rockers product. The design itself is based on a Vintage oil can from the 1930s with a tilting mechanism, which makes pouring easier.
„Rocker Spirits commissioned us to develop an iconic bottle and we asked ourselves: How can we transfer the oil can into glass? We wanted to bring the look and feel and character of the jug into the shape of a glass bottle,“ says Douglas Laib, O-I North America, Innovation and Product Design Group Leader.
Dustin Evans, co-founder of Rocker Spirits, was impressed by O-I's can-do mentality and entrusted his project to the world's largest manufacturer of glass containers. In several steps, the teams created a special design that gives Rockers an unmistakable brand identity at first glance.
„The first time we were able to see the samples and feel and touch them was a special moment,“ said Pat Johnson, Co-founder of Rocker Spirits.
The premium flint glass material conveys the high quality of the product and also gives it an industrial retro-vintage character. With its round shape, which becomes flatter on two sides, the bottle has an eye-catching look, decentralised neck, and, as a balancing counterweight, a Plinth on the reinforced floor. This combination ensures that the bottle can be rocked forwards and backwards to make pouring easier. The off-centre neck and finish require a certain complexity from the design and manufacturing process and therefore skilled technical craftsmanship. Dustin Evans is pleased with the result: „It's great and even felt a little surreal that we were able to realise our idea.“ Watch the video of the design development and realisation here.
