The Story Behind the Many Hands Bottle
DELVE INTO THE DESIGN INSPIRATION
This was our first collaborative whisky release, and we wanted the design to capture the spirit of the project.
Our designer, James Everitt at Brand & Story, has really outdone himself on this one. We knew that we wanted the bottle design for Many Hands to contain as many details of the two distilleries as possible, and to capture the fun we’ve had on the project. The challenge was to bring two very different looking brands together into one bottle design, in a way that looked cohesive. We gave James a stack of design elements from each brand and the back story of the collaboration and how it had come about and he went away and worked his magic.
Here are the details built into the label design…
The broad, brown band at the bottom of the label depicts Ingleborough, the second-highest - and arguably the most iconic and picturesque - mountain in the Yorkshire Dales. This stunning region is where much of Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust’s environmental and apprentice work happens. This silhouette is visible on all Cooper King whisky labels.
The contour lines in the background of the central strip are taken from the map of the Howardian Hills - the area just to the north of Cooper King Distillery.
The blue band at the top of the label is in Spirit of Yorkshire’s colours, and also has a faint wave pattern, echoing the wave motif embossed on the glass of their Filey Bay whisky bottles. The profile of the label cut-out at the top is actually the coastline at Flamborough, near Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery.
The gold band cutting diagonally behind the cream section depicts the River Wharfe, which merges with the River Ouse before flowing into the Humber and out to the North Sea. It also features on all the Cooper King whisky labels.
And on the back label, you can even find the driving route from Cooper King to Spirit of Yorkshire along the top of the barcode!
Obviously, the details behind the whisky itself are just as important, so if you scan the QR code on the back label, you’ll be directed to the Spirit Specifics page on our website, which gives the breakdown of the production process and casks used for both whiskies in the blend. Keep an eye out for future collaborative bottlings - we’ve loved exploring collab beers from craft brewers for years; now that we’ve finally got to have a go doing it ourselves, there’ll be no stopping us! At the Summer Bash this year we filled a cask from Spirit of Yorkshire (ex-Madeira) with a 50:50 blend of their whisky and ours, as a finishing cask. We’ll be monitoring the progress of it, but we’re hoping to release it at the next Summer Bash. One to look forward to!
Explore further:
Understand how our whisky funds life-changing apprenticeships for young people in rural England.
Read more about how we make single malt whisky.
Buy a bottle of Many Hands; England’s first collaborative whisky through the online shop.