For the Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s inaugural contribution to the Sotheby’s auction, STCKMN was commisioned to lead on the design and production of their never-to-be-repeated whisky release.

The Auction
The Distillers One of One auction gives whisky creators the opportunity to come together as an industry to celebrate their craft and donate a one-of-a-kind whisky to raise vital funds to help disadvantaged young people in Scotland.

The Client
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is a global whisky club that celebrates 40 years in 2023. Since it was first established in Edinburgh in 1983 the society has expanded to almost 40,000 members and has bottled whisky from over 180 distilleries.

The Brief
Design a one-of-a-kind packaging design that would compete for attention amongst the other distillery lots, create product and hero imagery for use in the marketing materials and production of a short film capturing the making and narrative behind the concept.

The Result
An industry first ‘The Only Drop’ is a handcrafted paper moulded sculpture that celebrates the relationship between liquid and cask. A visual narrative of the 33-year partnership that gave birth to this unique whisky.

The liquid itself is represented by a ripple formation that’s inspired by the unrepeatable pattern of water in nature, mirroring the layers of history and taste within the whisky itself with a single droplet representing the rarity of the release.

To honour the casks’ contribution to the flavour in the whisky, wood shavings from the original casks are embedded into the paper pulp sculpture. The idea being that when the sculpture is placed onto the bottle it reunites the whisky with the cask as they once were during maturation.

A 10cl miniature was created to allow the buyer to sample the whisky. It shares the same design features as the main bottle such as hand dipped wax neck and copper foil embellishments.

Accompanying the bottles is a hand-bound, hand foiled booklet that details the concept of “The Only Drop’, the whiskies journey and tasting notes.