I mean, we don’t have to do this, either.
In the wake of my recent review on the Glenmorangie Signet, long-time reader Michael and I bounced a few emails back and forth on something I didn't spend much time mentioning in the Signet review: the packaging and presentation of it all.
Admittedly, Signet is one of the more beautiful bottles that at least I've personally come across. It arrives in a faux-leather box with a magnetic enclosure, which is impressive in its own right, but my god is this bottle a knockout. The cap is its own subtle little art deco masterpiece: it seems to have been machined as a single gunmetal body with striations. This is not a plastic veneer painted to have metallic accents. It's a solid chunk of metal.
And the bottle itself? Yowza. It has an ombre color wash, allowing it to fade from an inky black into a rich, warm shade of orange that just has oodles of visual appeal. It's almost a shame it'll be covered by its leather box most of the time for most users. Oh, and there's probably about a half-pound of glass at the bottom of the bottle.
This is all undeniably cool. However, sit with your appreciation of a package like this for a bit and you might arrive at a particularly cynical (though truthful) conclusion: all of this costs money, and you just paid for it.
I'm going to say that for the quality and craftsmanship that goes into the Glenmorangie bottle, I'm going to estimate that the packaging alone is probably about $30. (And to be fair, this is very likely a low estimate.) If we didn't have the bells and whistles, an already expensive whisky would be just a little bit more affordable.
What do we do with that information? I offer a few thoughts that helped me put things into perspective.
1. All packaging costs money.
If you've ever started any kind of legal business entity, likely a U-line catalog showed up out of the blue for you. If you're not familiar with them, they sell basically everything that a business needs to do business, from cardboard boxes to orange traffic cones to 55-gallon drums to rolls of bubble wrap. The catalog isn't quite as thick as a phone book, but it's close.
I wasn't a young man when I received the U-line catalog for the first time, but I did have something of an epiphany when I flipped through it and realized just how much shit a business needs to buy just to make a few bucks. Suddenly, all of the plastic clamshell packages and paper ramekins in my average to-go order became a lot more visible. Someone's gotta pay for that stuff.
It’s all worth something!
Thinking about the Signet, I headed to the U-line catalog and punched in the price of a 750ml bottle. Ordered in bulk, and not counting shipping, the unit cost is $1.55. That doesn't count the cork, cap, or the printing and gluing costs of the label. Still, it means that for a typical $8 supermarket wine, 20% of what you pay might be for the container. For a bottle of the supremely inexpensive Trader Joe's “Charles Shaw” line of wines (i.e., “two buck Chuck”), most of what you pay is going to glass.
From that perspective, and if I'm right, the $30 Signet packaging is probably less, percentage-wise, of its total product cost when compared to not only budget wines, but even up-market spirits like Tanqueray 10, Basil Hayden, or Nolet's.
2. Setting expectations
In considering the Signet's packaging further, I heard the voice of an old English professor of mine. He wasn't an especially good teacher, nor do I remember him as an especially dynamic or engaging personality, but he did leave me with one great insight. In the words of Professor James:
“The introduction to your essay is the packaging for all of your great ideas that are going to come after it. Let’s say you’re going to buy me a solid gold Rolex. That would be a wonderful gift. But if you give me that Rolex wrapped in a greasy paper bag, I’m going to suspect something’s wrong with it.”
There's a fairly convincing body of research that shows that when people know something is more money, they evaluate it more generously and seem to enjoy it better. (This effect typically goes away during blind tastings, incidentally.) Again, a cynical reaction to this would be to say that Glenmorangie is making the Signet appear fancy in order to trick us into being happy with it.
If it weren’t fancy, it wouldn’t be sitting on a silk tie!
I can't discount that this is a useful function of good packaging! I doubt, however, that the sophisticates buying the Signet would be fully and convincingly tricked by a crap spirit in a good bottle. It might account for a few extra points of goodwill and charity here and there, but it's not like the $30+ in packaging is bribing consumers and writers alike into undeservedly favorable impressions.
Knowing what I do about the spirits industry, I can say this with conviction: when a distillery puts a product in good packaging, it is making a bet on itself. It is making a claim that they think their product can justify the extra metal, wood, glass, hand-stitched leather, or whatever else gussies up the booze. As you go up the ladder into the 21+ range and bottles become progressively more bejeweled, you could look at it as empty ostentation. However, I see it as the distillery making an increasing series of promises about what you can expect to get.
Put more plainly, every package is a distillery's way of saying: “We think this spirit belongs in this kind of bottle.” It is their way of letting you know how good they think it is.
3. Framing the moment
Beyond the theorycrafting above, I think one additional point is that the bottle doesn't just make a set of claims about the inherent spirit itself, but about the quality and nature of the experience in general.
For example, Michael shared with me that his purchase of the Signet was for a going-away party; he was moving to a new state, and it would be the last time for a while that he and a friend would be able to enjoy each other's company. However, the bottle would stay with his friend as something to look forward to for a yearly visit. In my case, the Signet seemed a fitting gift for the kindest and most insightful person I know.
Pure fantasy: six adults in one room, each with
a cocktail of their choice, and no kids mucking about!
These are not run-of-the-mill celebrations. They’re made just a little more special because we don't get to do this all the time. As a result, they call for something a little more elevated than a bottle of Grey Goose or Wild Turkey, supposing one's budget allows for it.
Cutting a long story short, I really do think packaging matters. We might save a little money if all distillers packaged their products in a boring, identical manner, but we'd certainly be losing out on some quantifiable part of the drinking experience. Sure, the packaging cost is something we the consumers are paying for, but I don’t think we’re getting fleeced.
And besides all that — good luck getting out of this life without being roped into purchasing something you didn’t think you wanted or needed!
