A typeface with a royal name for a bourbon brand that wants to be perceived as aristocratic:

Bourbon came out of the hill country. Honest but unmannered. How to make an aristocrat out of it was a challenge to I.W. Harper. He started by keeping the true honest taste of bourbon but polishing off the rough edges. Which explains why Mr. Harper’s whiskey is known as honest bourbon—but with manners.

The copy in Windsor is printed in red and wraps around the contour of the top hat.

I.W. Harper was founded by Isaac Wolfe Bernheim in Louisville, Kentucky.

From The Brand Identity:

Digital corner store and delivery service Foxtrot have partnered with Chicago’s artisanal cocktail bar The Violet Hour to devise a whisky blend of Kentucky straight bourbon. Tasking Milwaukee-based multi-disciplinary creative Jim Kennelly to help tell their story, the resulting identity is one referential to The Violet Hour’s pre-prohibition-style attitude to whisky, while being fundamentally celebratory of the liquor’s hometown of Chicago.

Finding its graphic voice through vintage printed materials, such as newspapers and liquor labels, Kennelly’s typographically-led identity and bottle design demonstrates creative strength in the nonchalance of its aesthetic. Combining characterful illustration and tender typography to create something both familiar and visually distinct.

Discussing the influence from vintage newspapers, Kennelly tells us that knowing the solution was going to be typographically focused, “we had to create a look that allowed us to give consumers multiple points of information as quickly as possible,” Kennelly explains. “We immediately were drawn to the idea of treating this as a sort of tabloid,” he adds, “using headlines and visual hierarchy to tell consumers what they need to know through an editorial format,” noting the aesthetic reference to America’s prohibition era.

With this in mind, Kennelly opted for Epoque Black as the primary typeface alongside Agipo Bold Condensed for the secondary headlines, with the editorial-esque construction of both lending themselves to the overarching chosen aesthetic.

Cloister with alternating sentence colors in use for an ad by Old Crow. The bevelled roman caps with mid-height spurs used for the logo are probably custom.

The Bird that rules the bourbon roost
This is Mr. Big among all bourbons. Here’s class & character and a very, very smooth taste. Daniel Webster & Andrew Jackson wouldn’t settle for less. Nor do millions of today’s Americans who’ve made Old Crow the No. 1 bourbon. Next round—make it better, make it smoother, make it with the Bird.

“Adhesive label for a friend’s limited edition aged cherry bourbon liquor.” — Kyle Fletcher

When I pick up a bottle of whiskey, I expect to see typography that conveys tradition, craft, or age. I don't expect to see type that makes me think of Facebook. Stainless, is a squarish, modern typeface with some striking similarities to Klavika, the basis for Facebook’s logo. The logo is Baskerville with an Adobe Garamond ‘W’.

If you visit Woodford Reserve's website, you'll see Stainless used there as a webfont, although I believe this is the only packaging where it has appeared. These two ryes are limited edition releases. We'll have to wait and see if Stainless becomes the limited edition font for WR. 

It was late at night when I tried the whiskey, and I was pretty tired, but as I recall, it wasn't too bad.