Woodford Reserve 2020 Holiday Bottle Paints A Serene Winter Scene

The flagship Woodford Reserve bourbon, a few times a year, typically gets a special variant label which is reflective of a moment in time. One is focused upon the annual Kentucky Derby, while another brings forth a scenic moment tied to the holiday season. For holiday season 2020 this is once again being offered.

The new Woodford Reserve 2020 Holiday Bottle, according to those behind it, has on it a label depicting festive artwork created by UK-based architect Nick Hirst. His scene of “Winter Slumber,” according to the brand, “captures the contrast between the warm, wooden interior of the historic warehouse at Woodford Reserve, and the stone exterior of the building. This snowy scene, recognizable to all guests who have visited Woodford Reserve over the last 24 years, celebrates the fact that whiskey ages year-around, regardless of weather.”

Hirst specializes in historic buildings, having worked 20 years in sites across the world from North Africa to the Middle East and Russia, identifying and analyzing the qualities of each building by drawing and sketching. His work has previously exhibited at the prestigious Royal Academy and Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour in London.

“At Woodford Reserve, I was looking for an opportunity to compare the colder exteriors to the warm interiors of the older buildings, while continuing to ‘tell the story’ of how the whiskey was made,” said Hirst in a prepared statement. “There was also a strong connection between the color of the rich wooden interiors of some of the buildings and the color of the bottle itself. The stone walls of the barrel store, with the barrel run leading into the wooden interior, was an ideal composition.”

It is said by Woodford Reserve that Hirst’s painting is “based on a few preliminary pencil sketches from his visit to the distillery in Versailles, Kentucky, later laid onto a handmade watercolor paper with the detail added with gouache and pen-work.”

“As I worked on the painting, I kept a bottle of Woodford Reserve on the drawing board, as a reminder of the color palette. Inevitably the bottle made its way into a drawing,” added Hirst.

The Woodford Reserve 2020 Holiday Bottle, pricing around $50 per 1-liter bottle, is available now across the United States and globally.