Garage Project: Kohaku

I was asked by Garage Project (NZ brewery) to come up with a design for their Amber Lager which used Japanese roast rice. The beer was just a small batch featuring at Burger Wellington 2022.

Of the concepts, they chose the Sakadaru route. Here's some wiki on that: 

Traditionally, sake was used to make offerings to the gods. The sake barrels commonly seen at shrines are called “sakadaru” (decorative sake barrels)

The decoration of barrels (known as kazaridaru) signifies a spiritual connection and relationship between brewers and shrines for prosperity. Most brewers donate these sake barrels to shrines for Shinto ceremonies, rituals and festivals. Japanese believe that sake acts as a symbolic unification of Gods and people.

You can often see them all wonderfully stacked at some of the big shrines - with Meiji Jingu being the famous one that you see pics of on all the stock photo sites.

Hardest part here was illustrating the kanji. I couldn't find a font that had the characters, so had to put a few different characters together and add he brush marks. Hope it looks ok to people who know more than me!