Here's the third beer from Cuzett Libations that was just named one of the top small breweries by Thrillest, you can read the article here: https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/the-best-small-breweries-in-america-best-nanobreweries. This was designed during the only huge snowstorm we had here in NYC this winter. It took a weekend, one day to design the type and another day for the illustration. 
I included the initials of my friend and roomate, Juren David, for which if it wasn't without his photo of Chris playing the sax, this illustration probably would not nearly have been so nicely executed.
Below is the wonderful photograph by Juren David that I used. 
Chris and Mary didn't have a set idea what the Smokin' Gold imagery was. For awhile I was thinking a car. I know right? Anyone who knows the two would have thought of the sax right off but c'est la vie. I did however come across this excellent art deco piece for Rolls Royce (below) done a few years ago and I saw a beer glass in it (the windshield is the head of the beer and the hood is the glass) which got me excited for the car idea. But then I was thinking, maybe it's not a great idea to link drinking and driving for obvious reasons. Thinking more about how to do the car tastefully I finally thought of Chris and his sax. It was good I didn't think of the sax right off because I may not have come across the Rolls Royce image and thus a big part of the idea.
It did bother me that Mary wasn't in this at all, after all it is CuzETT. I tried to do Mary as a Ladyface sax (which are art deco saxphones with, you guessed it, ladies) but it just muddled up the beer in the saxophone imagery unfortunately. I next used an image from the Cuzett wedding where Mary hoisted a keg above her head (again, another image from Juren I believe.) and she was going to be holding a smokin' gold keg. It was fine but Mary said it was much better without, which I did agree with. Alas, there will be a Mary label in the future! You can see mostly what it would have looked like below. I probably would have added some design to the coat and some smoke like on the sax. You can also see that the beer wasn't set in stone either as this one has it as a Smoked Golden Pale Ale.
Back to Top