If you ever want to make an argument for the importance of craft, or how consumers should be able to feel every ounce of the workmanship and skill on a piece of packaging, look no further than the coffee liqueur brand, Paranubes Café de Olla.

Designed by Abraham Lule, Café de Olla is a new offering from the Oaxacan rum brand Paranubes. 

Since the brand started branching out from its usual line of rums, the beverage has been a visual departure from its other products. Its striking design features custom illustrations, handmade letterforms, and diecuts steeped in storytelling. For Lule, his approach was purely artistic. He had plenty of creative license with the packaging and wanted something elegant that spoke to the drink’s humble ingredients and the surrounding countryside.

“There was no creative brief or strategy, no trying to make sense of every corner,” says Abraham Lule. “I’ve worked with the folks behind Paranubes for several years now. We’ve generated the trust it takes to have a ‘brief’ with the words ‘whatever you do, I’ll produce’ in it. That is rare nowadays, both for commercial reasons and because the idea of the ‘Designer as Thinker’ has been washed away.” Lule blames the “design isn’t art” crowd, but also how increasingly powerful software has dismantled the expertise and the beauty of what a designer can do with free rein.

“Trends have taken over instinct and craft,” he says. “Good design isn’t only about function, but also beauty. Stefan Sagmeister said it better: ‘Beauty is also a function.’” 

Originally, Lule had considered bottling the drink in clay pots (“de olla” translates to “pots” in Spanish), but that felt too on the nose. Traditionally, we think of Café de Olla as a Mexican coffee recipe that incorporates unrefined cane sugar and is made in, naturally, a clay pot. So, instead of using actual pots, they turned the usual pot into a brand medallion with a pink ribbon, a clear nod to the ritual and tradition associated with the drink. Illustrations of the cane sugar, cinnamon, and flowers also reside on the bottle, making the whole label resemble the spirits posters seen in the early part of the 20th century. Add an amber bottle, a necker featuring the handcrafted wordmark, the stopper, and a virtual clinic in typographic composition, and you have a full-on “indulgent journey.”

In other words, it’s gorgeous, and it feels as if the bottle has always existed, that it was always somewhere on the top shelf of a bar to be admired. 

The level of intention on display genuinely feels like something becoming increasingly rare. “Care and craft have already gone out of style, but never out of appreciation,” Lule says, noting that while there will always be someone who treasures those handcrafted moments, designers, by and large, tend to eschew those embellishments. “I blame the lack of focus and patience. If design is culture, or a reflection of culture, globally, our brains and hands are getting used to being impatient. We’re surrounded by constant distraction. Focus is a privilege nowadays. Having designers know how to illustrate, letter, conceptualize, compose—or either commission or direct it—and then knowing how to produce it feels like a stretch.” 

Contemporary design may be constrained by shrinking budgets or the relative skill needed to bring something like Café de Olla to life, but one thing’s certain—true artistry never goes out of style. And this is a bottle worth raising a glass to.

Photography by Francisco de Deus