Grandparent’s Delight is the name of my well-stocked home bar, and in the years since I developed a cane sugar allergy, Grandparent’s Delight has also lent its name to a range of housemade decoctions, infusions, and liqueurs designed as cane-free alternatives to commercial products. A set of labels were designed to give these products a more legitimate presence on the liquor shelf. To complete the illusion, the labels fall into several different visual sub-brands under the umbrella of Grandparent’s Delight:
• The Fernets: lightly sweetened liqueurs principally flavored with saffron and bitter aloes. Labels are set in Beaux Arts Didot and Polliwog.
• The Génépis: complex, high-proof herbal liqueurs flavored with the alpine herb génépi. Labels are set in Hesse Antiqua (including one of Hesse Antiqua’s ornaments) and a coarse optical size of Kyrios.
• The “single-notes”: pure infusions of a single ingredient, typically fruit. Labels are set in FF Bauer Grotesk.
• The Grandparent’s Delight house brand: a catch-all category for multi-ingredient recipes. Labels are haphazardly set in Bild. (Spot the customized cedilla.)
• Aquavit, a nordic infusion of caraway, uses Kabel and (what else?) Kumlien.
A workmanlike universal label for the back side of each bottle uses Pitch and Pitch Sans and provides space for detailed notes on the batch.