Rigid packaging TricorBraun has provided an advanced packaging for The 1970 Vodka, which is a ready-to-drink vodka cocktail.
When Ikeda Feingold needed a packaging partner to bring a family cocktail tradition to life, her search led her to rigid packaging leader TricorBraun.
Feingold's product, The 1970, is an original, ready-to-drink vodka cocktail based on a family recipe since 1970 made with 19 exotic fruits, spices and botanicals and is 70 proof, thus the name The 1970.
Launched in spring 2017, The 1970 can be served neat over ice, as a shot, or mixed with any other spirit, juice or soda, used in place of straight vodka in a cocktail. "The applications are endless," according to Feingold.
The 1970 vodka's creator Ikeda Feingold said: "I was a small fish in a big pond with a brand-new product concept.
"I was new to the process and searched online for glass manufacturers. I wasn't hearing back from companies I thought could help me, but TricorBraun responded immediately. They were so patient and even though I was a small company, they took me seriously."
The 1970 was created to appeal to millennials, who have a more sophisticated and global palate than previous generations.
"Millennials didn't really have a spirits product of their own," said Feingold. "I noticed they were romanticizing previous decades in their music and fashion choices and gravitating toward the 1970s in particular. Everything old was new again. At the same time, the 1970s was symbolic of my youth."
Feingold knew she wanted to deliver her cocktail in a tall, glass bottle with a mix of feminine and masculine design elements. She wanted her product, a new concept in vodka-based spirits with a modifier, to stand out from brown liquors, typically packaged in short bottles. "I wanted to it to be thought of as a liqueur but I didn't want it to look like a liqueur bottle," she said.
To achieve the look, an offset neck – which is uncommon for a glass-bottled product – was essential to her vision. Feingold shared her napkin sketch idea with Marco Serrano, TricorBraun's design development manager.
"Ikeda's design inspiration was sophisticated, elegant, high-end – and not manufacturable," said Serrano. "Our challenge was to develop a manufacturable design without compromising the customer's vision and to find a vendor who could produce the desired look. Today all necks are centered."
Serrano and the TricorBraun team conducted a spirits merchandising audit and, working closely with Feingold throughout the process, quickly created a tapered design with an offset neck and broad shoulders that blended the reality of manufacturing with Feingold's vision. "This is absolutely one of my favorite designs of the past ten years," said Serrano.
The team worked to find the right bottle supplier in Italy – a supplier who could produce the offset neck and handle the intricate embossed elements on the sides of the bottle without fracturing the glass. Given the design's tapered, flat panels, and heavy thick base the vendor used a semi-automatic process to mold the bottles. The final bottles were also hand-labeled and hand-filled which was required due to the unique, stylized shape.
Currently available at on-premise locations in Georgia, The 1970 has exceeded sales expectations. Feingold expects to launch the product in a few more states, including South Carolina and Florida.
She attributes 90 percent of The 1970 vodka's sales success to the product's design.
"I wanted the bottle's look to give the feeling that it's been around for a long time, but yet also modern and new," she said. "People have been very receptive, and that's in large part due to the look of the product and its packaging."
TricorBraun Design & Engineering Group is a business unit of TricorBraun, one of North America's leading providers of rigid packaging. Our team's primary mission is to design, engineer and manage the development, production and commercialization of custom packaging solutions for personal care, cosmetics, healthcare, food and beverage, industrial household chemical and animal health products.
