The inaugural project ‘The Macbeth Collection' from Livingstone, an independent whisky company created by Alexis Livingstone Burgess.
The Macbeth Collection is a Scotch whisky collection of forty-two characters of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with character notes by Dave Broom, whiskies by Elixir Distillers and illustrations by Sir Quentin Blake. All forty-two characters are split into six character series:
The Leads
Five Regal Malts limited to 100 bottles each.
The Thanes
Twelve Noble Single Malts from the length and breadth of Scotland.
The Ghosts
Six Single Malt or Single Grain whiskies from ghost distilleries.
The Witches
Four smoky un named Malts and Blends.
The Murderers
Four Island Malts that, alongside the Witches, shall remain unnamed.
The Household
Ten characterful Scotch whiskies.
The complete collection will be released in five Acts. The First Act - the first 9 characters, was released in March 2023.
The most famous Scottish play full of fantastic characters from across Scotland, bright to dark, light to heavy, from every class and realm, at different ages, all waiting to be cast as Scotch whiskies. The fixed number of characters meant the series would be finite – key to creating a meaningful collection. The series within this were already formed, both in terms of characterisation and price: The Leads could be scarce single malt Scotch whiskies of great age, noble whiskies of around 30 years old to represent The Thanes, and the play is full of Ghosts, perfect for silent, ghost distilleries. The Witches are the world’s most famous blenders, and The Household – a porter, doctors, messengers – are ideal for characterful whiskies available in greater numbers at a more accessible price.
The best thing is, people know the characters, and have opinions about them. This project changes the way you think about the whisky. Rather than being “is this a good example of a such and such bourbon cask” it’s “is this Banquo?”, which is a more entertaining conversation.
Alongside the identity for Livingstone, Burgess Studio also designed the the full packaging suite for the Macbeth collection. This included a proprietary bottle, label sets, boxes and presentation cases, tasting kits, miniature bottle sets and a full set of sales toolkits and other collateral.