Rittenhouse Straight Rye Whisky, first bottled in 1934, is one of America’s most iconic rye whiskeys. We were tasked with helping relaunch the brand for a modern audience through an integrated campaign, refreshed identity system, and redesigned website.
Client: Rittenhouse [Heaven Hill Distillery]
Work: Brand Refresh/Relaunch Campaign
Done while working at Method1.
rittenhouserye.com
Work: Brand Refresh/Relaunch Campaign
Done while working at Method1.
rittenhouserye.com
The Opportunity:
A long-standing staple on backbars, Rittenhouse has historically seen much of its success through on-premise sales — a reflection of its loyal following within the trade.
As we looked at the broader whiskey category, we saw an opportunity to avoid the traditional luxury positioning that dominates the space and instead lean further into Rittenhouse’s deep-rooted relationship with cocktail culture.
This led us to place bartenders and cocktail professionals at the center of the campaign strategy.
The Campaign:
“Cocktail Creatively” was developed as a call-to-action to the industry — encouraging bartenders to revisit the roots of classic cocktails and rediscover Rittenhouse as a foundational rye whiskey behind the bar.
The integrated campaign extended across digital, social, OOH, retail, and web, alongside a national bartender competition developed in partnership with VinePair that challenged bartenders across the country to create original cocktails using Rittenhouse Rye.
The Visual Language:
Because the strategy centered around the trade, the visual system was designed to feel tactile and expressive. We wanted the complex processes of cocktail-making to reflect in the choices we made.
Close-cropped hand photography referenced the gestures and rituals of bartending, while scribbled notes, markings, recipes, and layered textures echoed the experimentation and spontaneity behind creating cocktails.
We also created a set of brand guidelines for them, codifying the use of their logo as well as adding the sections that we worked on to extend and relaunch the brand into today’s market.
We conceptualized and held a photoshoot to capture the visual elements we wanted to base the campaign around, and began to create the collaterals for the launch.
Finally, we built out a new website for the brand. Here are some parts of it.
