Cocuy, a spirit drink originating in Venezuela and with strong roots in the Ballesteros family behind DUG, was preparing to leap onto the global stage through the Cocuy Saroche brand. Accompanied by Morillas’ vision and know-how, the objective was simple: to build a global icon from a local brand that could embody authenticity, origin, know-how and premiumness across all touchpoints.

To kick-off the project, we immersed ourselves in the brand and its context. We met the Ballesteros family, the marketing and commercial managers, and the cocui agave farmers, to fully understand what makes Cocuy Saroche a unique brand. Following this initial analysis phase, we defined the brand platform and developed its verbal and visual expression.

We set ourselves the ambitious task of ‘reinventing the premium agave category’ with a seal of authenticity and genuine Venezuelan quality. For the bottle’s label, inspired by the handcrafted jars from the Lara region in which cocuy was carried in ancient times, we worked on a cracked texture, like that of the surface of the ceramic bottles, that becomes refined over time. We also designed the graphic branding, which incorporates the silhouette of the Cerro de Saroche national park to highlight the origin and raise perception towards the super-premium segment. We built a classic and elegant visual universe, where messages, illustrations and typeface evoking the manual touches of the traditional Cocuy jar drawings weave a story around the main brand qualities (ingredient, origin, production, etc.). To round off, both the cork and the bottle neck subtly highlight the unique Agave Cocui Trelease variety. The storytelling generated on the label went far beyond the bottle to decant a new brand universe.

The final result far exceeds the expectations of the Ballesteros family and allows us to strengthen a collaborative alliance that extends to many other areas.