Uisge Beatha: Gaelic for Girlie?

Whisky—our water of life—symbolic of Scotland. Robust, subtle, international, exacting and diverse in its hundreds of variations, it is vital to both our economy and national identity.

It is the one product through which the whole world can know us and understand who we are.

But there is a silent creeping malaise eating away at the character of the strong drink; and it is being led by the effete troupe of girlish graphic designers and limp marketing people.

Whisky packaging design and ‘re-branding’ is too often the process of emasculating tradition, of introducing Disney-style Victorian heritage, of replacing real with fake.

Perhaps it is the sclerosis that makes us too lily-livered. Perhaps we have been drinking the perfume. What other excuses can there be for the striking similarity between the contemporary whisky label and those bottles of Eau-de-Cologne?

On the other hand, maybe the Sol-swilling hairdresser classes have never tried a drop of the hard stuff.

The design of whisky packaging has become worrying distant from the contents of the bottle.

The process was really started by United Distillers who launched the enormously charming and successful Classic Malts range. They introduced the idea of the babbling copywriter to the label, and the twee illustrations were so beautifully crafted and breathtakingly printed that one may excuse them responsibility for the fallout which followed.

The copy of Talisker is simultaneously perfect and cringing. Spoken in an English accent, “more than a hint of local seaweed” is of course bollocks. Bloody hell, it comes from Skye, not a meadow in the Dordogne. It’s a big whisky, not all shy and blushing.

Cragganmore is better. The exquisite Victorian etching is so redolent of a Robert Louis Stevenson frontispiece and pubescent schoolboy days that the result is quite anally retentive. It spawned a legion of bastard children, all watercolours and soft-pencil drawings of hielan’ hames from Coatbridge to Corpach.

Oban, another ‘Classic Malt’, manages to get a 250-word essay on the front-along with a couple of seagulls. A made-up history for a real product and a real place.

And how the masses did follow, like lemmings to the crag. Illustrations of glens and bothies and every kind of bird and animal that ever graced our shores.

Farm animals, foxes, fish, cats, even oyster catchers, were drafted by London casting agencies to become representatives for our historic drink.

Not everyone can have a stag or a grouse. One of the distillery managers was given a blackcock. He was not amused.

Cream and green and gold became the uniform of the wannabe brands who are not sufficiently confident in themselves to recognise and articulate their own qualities.

Of course it is quire natural to try to follow those who appear to be the leaders, but it is shocking how easy it has been for designers to regurgitate heritage grammar in the most inappropriate settings, and then dress it up with sweet wee stories about some local alkies.

The tendency towards corporate branding has at times taken on a monolike approach—usually more appropriate to oil companies. The ‘Connoisseurs choice’ range from Long John makes a single brand out of more than 35 products.

Whilst this may be efficient and rational, it is against diversity and against the very uniqueness that its name professes to promote. Diversity is the foundation of richness. Once lost, it is impossible to re-invent.

Our culture is expressed through the design of our products. International homogeneity may eventually erode all that which is essentially Scottish and it is important to value the vernacular and sometimes crude work of old typographers and local printers.

That is where our true graphic tradition resides. It can still sometimes be seen in bakers’ bags and in the hand-painted fascias of independent retailers in small towns.

In order to keep it, we have to understand it and value it. There is always an easier route than clear thought and unfortunately this often comes seductively disguised as creativity.

Not all are bad: The Glenlivet is handsome and straightforward, and the soft serifs of The Macallan seem to reflect the character of the rounded single malt.

Laphroaig is almost controversial in its black and white plainness. No trivial ornament is deemed necessary from Scotland’s most richly flavoured whisky. In standing separately from the cream and decal-edged crown, Laphroaig is at once crude but unique. A man’s drink, a rough diamond.

Glenfiddaich and Chivas Regal are the Versace whiskies—a lot of gold, plenty of glitz. They represent that catholic strain in our national characteristic which relishes decoration, excess and conspicuous wealth.

But nevertheless they are magnificent classics. Perhaps they are not so fashionable at the moment but they will be long lasting, only ever in need of the occasional minor adjustment rather than wholesale re-design.

It is said that the distillers are concerned about the lack of appeal which whisky has to the style-conscious youth market of the under-25s.

The problem is not with the packaging but with the baggage of prejudice and snobbery that surrounds many of the brands. Much of new design work reinforces these attitudes—only recalling the floral wallpaper and decorative borders of suburban Edinburgh.

The trend of printing directly onto the bottle, made successful by Absolut and so many of the designer beers, has crept in as well.

What is rational for a clear spirit is plain daft for whisky. The awful Bowmore has adopted this technique with great enthusiasm, probably to impress the youngsters. I trust that when the heady thrill of being different wears off, the gimmick will become clear.

There is no harm in stepping to one side of idiomatic convention for a moment. J&B is the best of these. Enormous red text on a yellow label (a special kind of yellow which is more green), and all on a superb green bottle.

It is recognisable at a hundred paces. The design is unique and robust, it uses some of the same typographical devices as many of the others but achieves the design with such confidence that it cannot be missed—whether on supermarket or gantry shelf.

You can recognise Johnnie Walker from a mile away as well. The round bottle and confident naffness speaks volumes. Red or Black? Nothing could be more direct.

The design addresses the bigger formal issues with the gusto of the whisky without becoming obsessed with the trivial and effeminate curlicues of printers’ ornaments.

The trouble with graphic designers is that they are mostly very good at making things look pretty.

Whisky doesn’t need pretty. It is not that kind of drink.