Yellowbelly: Small-Batch Maple Syrup

From Christian Bird, Creative Director and founder of Bird&Co (www.birdand.co), an independent branding and packaging studio focused on visual identity and packaging for craft food and beverage brands.

Yellowbelly is a small-batch Hudson Valley maple syrup, and passion project inspired by woodland craft, traditional sugaring methods, and woodcut illustration. Created by Creative Director Christian Bird, of Bird&Co.

“A few years ago, I moved out of New York City into a small 1920s farmhouse in the Hudson Valley, surrounded by new growth woodland where pasture once stood. Not long after settling in, I realized I had an abundance of sugar maple trees and naturally became curious about making syrup.

Making maple syrup has quietly become a seasonal ritual for me. As soon as winter starts to loosen its grip, I’m outside collecting sap and boiling it down over my own harvested maple wood. I love the excuse to spend long days outdoors during the colder, darker months. It’s slow, and very fulfilling work.

This year, I decided to package some of the syrup I’d been making for friends and family. After nearly twenty years designing visual identity and packaging for food and beverage brands, it felt like an obvious (and heavily encouraged) step to turn something personal into a small design project.

Yellowbelly is named after the Yellow-bellied woodpeckers that tap the maple trees around my woodland. The name is a natural nod to both my surname and my studio, Bird&Co.

The design takes inspiration from traditional woodcut illustration and the hand-carved trailhead signage you see throughout the Hudson Valley. I partnered with illustrator and artist Ian McDermott, who brought craft and character to the original concepts and sketches.

The syrup itself is cooked over my own harvested maple wood using windfall and coppiced timber. For now, I’m producing small batches when I can, mostly gifting away bottles to friends, family, and collaborators. I’ve had interest from a local retailer, who’s seen what I’ve been up to so I’m playing with ideas of what next season could become.”