COOOT treats PocketTAILS cocktails as books in a flavour archive

PocketTAILS turns the cocktail into a book. Each 100ml serving lives inside a compact, rectangular box with a colour-coded spine and cover dedicated to a single bold silhouette. “The concept came from a simple thought: what if you could open a cocktail anytime, anywhere?” explains Bai Mi, Creative Director of COOOT Studio. The self-initiated packaging project treats classics – including Paloma, Cosmopolitan, Old Fashioned, Brandy Sour, Margarita, Piña Colada, Dirty Martini and Corpse Reviver – as entries in what the Zhengzhou-based studio calls a flavour archive. On the cover of each box, a single cocktail-glass silhouette fills the composition. The coupe belongs to the Brandy Sour, the tall stemmed silhouette to the Paloma, the inverted triangle to the Cosmopolitan. Each functions as an icon, label and flavour cue simultaneously. Mi describes the drafting as an exercise in restraint. “The balance was between recognisability and graphic clarity,” he says. “Accuracy was important, but only to the extent that the silhouette remained immediately identifiable. The final shapes are simplified, but still faithful to the original forms.” Inside each glass shape, the cocktail’s name breaks across multiple lines to fit the silhouette – PAL / OM / A on Paloma, COSMO / POLI / TAN on Cosmopolitan – followed by the provenance, volume and ABV in smaller type beneath. The effect is closer to a film poster than a drinks label.