Delgados Tequila Soda Transports You Back To The Acapulco Of The 1970s

Acapulco was once a glamorous tourist destination. Superstars like Elvis, Bridget Bardot, and Elizabeth Taylor once frequented the beach resort city, and John Wayne even owned a hotel there. The golden age of Acapulco would eventually end around the late 70s and early 80s, losing favor with the rich and famous to other Mexican beach destinations like Cabo San Lucas and Cancun.

That bygone era serves as the inspiration behind the Australian Ready-To-Drink (RTD) cocktail brand Delgados, owned by Superdrop. The Delgados lineup consists of three tequila soda flavors—Grapefruit & Jalapeño, Lime & Basil, and Pineapple & Ginger. Each flavor is made using natural ingredients and authentic tequila and contains 5.5% Alcohol By Volume (ABV).

The branding and packaging design for Delgados comes from the Superdrop team, led by creative director Lachie Goldsworthy. Lachie said that the Delgados branding was heavily influenced by Slims Aaron’s photography and tropical modernist architecture like John Lautner's Arango House.

“Tequila RTD is a nascent category in Australia, but we are seeing huge growth in both tequila and premium RTD,” Goldsworthy said. “Delgados has been designed and created as a premium brand for what we call new-wave RTD drinkers—those seeking high-quality beverages, better-produced products, forward-thinking concepts, and expressive brands."

To do this, they needed to build a visual identity with enough cultural cache to entice curious drinkers. “We wanted to create a brand and packaging that feels timeless and premium but is still approachable and also nods to the classic bygone era that was the late 1960s to late 1970s.

We took a lot of inspiration from classic beer can packaging from that era,” explained Goldsworthy. 

Of course, we're talking tequila here, and within the category, you'll often find products rife with cliche imagery and stereotypes that spell "Mexico." That explains why Goldsworthy wanted to leave it to the consumer to create their own interpretation of the brand world. But they still laid the groundwork for that journey. "We wanted to keep the brand world and era loose which allows us to explore more of it and not have to feel too authentic to one certain 'time and place,’" Goldsworthy added. "Fonts and colors help that a lot.”

The typography does plenty of hevy lifting for the brand, starting with an attention-grabbing wordmark. A black sash is draped on the label, reading “Delagdos” in a groovy typeface, while the logo and edges of the banner are gold, adding to that 70s Acapulco feel. 

The top half of the can is white with thin, gold horizontal stripes going across. The Delgados logo, a round sun with curvy rays, sits on top of the label, and “sin problemas,” or “worry free,” is above. The bottom half features a color corresponding to the tequila soda flavor. They also opted for a gender-neutral design but eschewed anything that read as too minimalist or childlike. "We see it a lot in the better-for-you drinks category with a lot of white and pastels,” Goldsworthy noted.

Delgados’ branding and visual identity do a fantastic job of recreating the look and vibe of Acapulco’s prime, an age when the privileged arrived to soak up the warm Mexican sun while lazing on the beach. 

And nursing a tequila soda, naturally.

Images courtesy of Delgados.