Caleño Says You Don't Need Booze To Have A Good Time

You don’t need to be five gin and tonics deep to have a good time. Just ask Caleno.

Founded by Ellie Webb, Caleño is a non-alcoholic spirit distilled with a mix of juniper, citrus and spice botanicals that offer a similar texture and flavor to gin, making it a great alternative to those who don't care for alcohol but still want to partake in an evening of cocktails with friends.

As an old friend of the company (and a former intern), Ellie’s story starts when she got in touch with Design Bridge, an award-winning brand agency with studios in London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Shanghai and New York, to build the company’s story from scratch.

"Ellie's inspiration and vision for the brand were rooted in her Colombian heritage, so we had the perfect natural starting point," begins Hayley Barrett, Design Director of Design Bridge. "We set about researching the country's culture and history, paying special attention to the city of Cali, which is famed for its salsa dancing and where the brand name comes from – the people of Cali are known as Caleño. There was so much visual inspiration between the rich colors, patterns, stories and iconography we uncovered that it fed into our creative thinking."

The next step was to craft a design that not only combined all of the ideas they discovered through their research and Ellie's personal stories but to also embrace the fact that you don't need to drink alcohol to have a good time.

"We were also mindful that we wanted to provide Ellie with more than just a beautiful bottle, so we made sure that all of the individual elements of our design were carefully crafted to provide her with a suite of assets for a part of the wider brand world, such as retail, on social media, and in experiential and promotional contexts," adds Barrett.

The focal point of the design is a hand-drawn illustration of Huitaca, the free-spirited goddess of arts, dance and music in pre-Colombian culture, that flows around the bottle with an owl at the end. This owl symbolizes the myth behind Huitaca that states she was turned into one to prevent further indulgence amongst the villages she visited.

Design Bridge also wove feathers throughout the dress and used gold foiling, the primary export of the Incan Empire as additional hidden ways to tell Caleño’s brand story.

"One of our favorite parts of this design is the use of evocative language and copywriting, and how we’ve crafted the copy around the pack in a rhythmic way, just like the beats in salsa music," says Barrett. "'Captured for the dawn’s dancers, the daydreamers, the game changers, the pleasure seeker’s, art’s muse, the melody makers and freedom’s spirit,' really expresses the spirit of Caleño and the joy of dancing until dawn."  

“For us, Huitaca became a joyful expression of the brand’s belief that you don’t need to drink alcohol to have a good night out,” share Barrett.