Getting a handle on vodka

McCormick Distilling Co.'s Quadruple Distilled vodka is the No. 2 selling domestic vodka, but, “Even with all the success McCormick vodka had achieved, we saw room for improvement,” says Jim Zargo, McCormick's president and CEO. “That's why we embarked on a two-year journey to further enhance the McCormick vodka experience, which resulted in a built-in handle on the plastic bottle.” The 1.75-L polyethylene terephthalate bottle for McCormick Distilling Co.'s popular vodka brand is being supplied by Amcor PET Packaging (www.amcor.com).

According to McCormick, up until now, no one had been able to successfully create a commercial, handled PET liquor bottle, due to the difficulty of blow molding around a grip. “We knew that you can't blow a PET handle, so we worked with Amcor to figure out how to do it. We even looked at a clip-on version, but found out pretty quickly that it wouldn't support the 1.75-L volume,” Zargo says.

“This is an extremely difficult process to execute,” explains Jonathan Jarman, project engineer at Amcor. “One of the trickiest elements is to make sure that the grip is perfectly placed inside the mold. If that is not done correctly, or if the material isn't heated just right, you either won't capture the grip or you will puncture the material. The other major issue is that there wasn't a machine with a proven track record for this type of application.” Because there were no commercially available units, a proprietary reheat/blow machine was purpose-built for the project.

With all of those variables in the mix, the bottle design itself also needed to make accommodations for the volume displaced by the grip. “McCormick wanted us to emulate the look of their former 1.75-L bottle, but we needed to modify that a little to get the right volume” Jarman says. “The solution was to move the shoulder up and reduce the neck height.” Two years in the making, the bottle entered distribution at the beginning of 208. Since the introduction, McCormick has been enjoying good feedback from both distributors and retailers. “We are also happy to report that consumers are reacting very favorably to the new bottle. We have already experienced sales growth and are gaining distribution based on the new packaging,” Zargo says.