At Backbar studios we love a design challenge and developing a bespoke and artistic solution for ‘Two Shores’, a premium golden rum, was an exciting and investigative visual exercise that we are incredibly proud of.

Two shores is an eight-year-old premium rum produced in Panama, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and then aged in selected oak barrels on the west coast of Ireland to develop its unique character and flavour.

The final product features a squat bottle reminiscent of old-style rum bottles, and wrapping around it, an experimental graphic label simulating a rich texture of gold veins representing the coastal topography and ocean waves.

This was a wonderful opportunity for us to experiment with custom-created lustre inks. This beautiful and unique effect was developed to echo the ebb and flow of the two oceans and affords the final label a subtle sense of movement. This textured approach is consistent across the current range of four different rums, each with its own bold colour variation, in turn contributing to a striking set of rum drinks.

The design also features a dramatic tear through the heavy paper label, graphically telling the story of the oceanic divide and the rum’s journey between the two continents. Within the shape of the tear, elements taken from the geographical coastlines of Ireland and Panama are there to be discovered. It is all these subtle details that complete and compliment this story, of a unique rum born of ‘Two Shores’.