Five years ago, Lewiston, ME-based White Rock Distilleries unveiled its Three Olives Vodka in a "cool" frosted-glass bottle that displays a clear outline of a martini glass located on the bottle's front. The clear martini-glass window provides a see-through effect to an olives graphic on the back of the bottle. The unique bottle design strives to reinforce the brand's image of an upscale product and also to differentiate the vodka brand in a crowded spirits aisle.

The frosted glass bottle is produced in Europe and imported to White Rock Distilleries, where it is packaged and distributed nationally. Three Olives product offerings come in 50-, 375- and 750-ml and 1- and 1.75-liter sizes. The initial US rollout included the five sizes using the decorated, frosted bottles from Europe.

Last year, however, White Rock released six flavored vodkas under the Three Olives name and needed alternatives for the 50-ml size. "Reduced costs is a major factor in using shrink-sleeve labels versus the frosted glass bottle," says Scott Coulombe, plant manager, White Rock Distilleries.

White Rock found its solution from labelmaker SleeveCo (Dawsonville, GA). SleeveCo prints and converts the 2-mil polyvinyl chloride shrink-sleeve film for White Rock using single-layer material supplied by Bonset America Corp. (Brown Summit, NC).

Coulombe adds, "Besides costs, the availability of the acid-etched bottle from Europe was difficult, and shrink-sleeve labels offer flexibility with inventory. Now, we can stop on a dime and change our production schedule to package the vanilla vodka flavor, instead of waiting for the delivery of the frosted bottles from Europe." White Rock uses the shrink-sleeve labels for all of the 50-ml vodka lines, but still uses the frosted glass bottles for the larger sizes.

For the flavored vodka rollout in 2003, White Rock released three vodkas—raspberry, vanilla and chocolate—using 50-ml frosted glass bottles from Europe. Shortly after the flavored-vodka release, SleeveCo began the R&D process for using shrink-sleeve labels to achieve the acid-etched look of the larger bottles.

"Typical matte finishes come across too cloudy, and we needed to get pop, depth and definition for the labels," says Martin Wilson, SleeveCo director of marketing and sales. "Working closely with our ink supplier, we continually modified the formulation of the ink."

Also, once the film is on-press, curing agents and solvents alter the matte finish to achieve the desired look. For the first run of label printing, SleeveCo produced three different variations, and White Rock chose the best representation of the frosted bottle, the converter says.

The film is gravure-printed using eight colors, including varnishes, for all of the flavored vodkas and for the original line. Gravure printing via solvent-based inks proved to be the best method to portray a frosted or etched-glass look, SleeveCo says.

The converter uses an eight-station, 16-in. Chesnut 150 press, supplied by W.R. Chesnut Engineering, Inc. (Fairfield, NJ). The gravure press includes a management-information system that reduces setup time for repeat jobs, which helps greatly with the Three Olives flavored vodka labels. Capable of reaching speeds of 750 fpm, the Chesnut 150 runs at an average speed of 500 fpm for the vodka labels.

Besides reproducing the frosted finish for the shrink-sleeve labels, SleeveCo also replicates all of the other visual aspects from the original bottle, including printing at the bottom edge of the bottle's front side. For the original bottle, the Three Olives name is overprinted onto the acid etching. On the 50-mL bottles, the matte finish is knocked-out behind the type to give contrast and to create more "pop," which offers a look similar to the larger bottles.

"Registration issues are crucial with these labels," Wilson says. "The tight dropout area mandates pinpoint accuracy throughout the run." The other major challenge is the focal point of the Three Olives' bottles—the clear martini glass "window." This window provides a see-through effect to the olives and the fruit graphics that are printed on the back of the label.

"One thing that is really important to White Rock is the ability to take the martini-glass window and have the olives and fruit visually pop off the label," says Wilson. "We produce this by using a high-clarity film and running an extra layer of varnish on the label."

R&D for the printing of the Three Olives labels began with a previous job for SleeveCo. The converter worked with a cosmetics customer to develop a matte finish with clear film, and the Three Olives project was a continuation of this application.

"We performed three to six months of R&D for the cosmetic application," Wilson says. "We used the knowledge gained from this project and applied it to Three Olives to develop the frosted-film look. This took an additional three months of R&D to complete. We're hoping this application will feed into other projects down the road."

So far, White Rock Distilleries and SleeveCo are certainly able to toast their success.

This article originally appeared in Packaging Digest (Feb. 2004).