Catto’s Celebrates Visionary Founder with New Look Bottle and Packaging

The remarkable heritage of International Beverage’s blended Scotch whisky Catto’s has been captured in a striking new bottle and packaging design, set for release next month. The award-winning whisky has delved deep into the history of its founder James Catto, an ambitious businessman and pioneer of blending who was one of the first to ship whisky around the world when Catto’s was established in Aberdeen in 1861.

James Catto’s entrepreneurial spirit is at the core of the new brand proposition, ‘To the glorious journey’, which pays tribute to the whisky’s early connections with the golden age of ocean travel on P&O and White Star shipping lines which also hail from Aberdeen, and whose founders were former school friends of James Catto.

The dynamic and elegant new bottle design has a contemporary aesthetic whilst retaining core whisky cues. The label shape takes inspiration from a boat’s bow and the bottle features a ‘ripple effect’, as though a boat is cutting a path through the waves on the ocean. The design reflects the story of the ocean liners that would have taken Catto’s Blended Scotch whisky to all the corners of the world.

Catto’s new look is being unveiled to the global industry next month and aims to give the brand a strong identity in the upper standard segment of the mainstream whisky category – launching first in Canada, Russia and Spain, then rolling out globally in 2016.

Catto’s Brand Manager Lynne Buckley commented: ‘The new Catto’s brand proposition epitomises the provenance and heritage at the heart of our blend. Today’s whisky drinkers can identify with James Catto’s pioneering spirit and his dedication to making an exceptional whisky, launched in Scotland with a drive and determination to ship it around the world for people to enjoy. The beautiful new bottles and cartons bring his story to life and give us a striking new look to support our own ambitious plans for Catto’s in global markets in the years ahead.’

Catto’s is a perfectly balanced whisky with a high proportion of malts from the Speyside and Highland regions described in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2015 as ‘an absolutely masterful whisky which both refreshes and relaxes.’

Catto’s new brand identity has been developed by JDO Brand Design and Innovation in London, with Ardagh Group and Royston Labels creating the new bottle and labels respectively from JDO’s initial concept designs.