Grandparent’s Delight is the name of my well-stocked home bar, and in the years since I developed a cane sugar allergy, Grandparent’s Delight has also lent its name to a range of housemade decoctions, infusions, and liqueurs designed as cane-free alternatives to commercial products. A set of labels were designed to give these products a more legitimate presence on the liquor shelf. To complete the illusion, the labels fall into several different visual sub-brands under the umbrella of Grandparent's Delight:

• The Fernets: lightly sweetened liqueurs principally flavored with saffron and bitter aloes. Labels are set in Beaux Arts Didot and Polliwog.

• The Génépis: complex, high-proof herbal liqueurs flavored with the alpine herb génépi. Labels are set in Hesse Antiqua (including one of Hesse Antiqua's ornaments) and a coarse optical size of Kyrios.

• The “single-notes”: pure infusions of a single ingredient, typically fruit. Labels are set in FF Bauer Grotesk.

• The Grandparent’s Delight house brand: a catch-all category for multi-ingredient recipes. Labels are haphazardly set in Bild. (Spot the customized cedilla.)

• Aquavit, a nordic infusion of caraway, uses Kabel and (what else?) Kumlien.

A workmanlike universal label for the back side of each bottle uses Pitch and Pitch Sans and provides space for detailed notes on the batch.

Milanese-born restaurateur Edoardo Mantelli’s latest project was driven by his infatuation with the Viennese-style cafes of fin-de-siècle Milan, where heated exchanges about the origins of the Negroni were cooled by a refreshing Spritz (Campari, per favore, not Aperol). Our branding for Saraghina Caffè is a loving tribute to the grace and grandeur of these institutions, with their rich heritage and passionate hand-gesture conversations.

Within the art nouveau landscape, we looked to early 1900s illustrators like Alphonse Mucha and Secessionist artists such as Koloman Moser. The creative process was loose and adaptive. Furniture, stained glass, and sculpture inspired the border treatments, and more graphic historical posters from some of the greats of their time (Leopoldo Metlicovitz, Adolfo Hohenstein and Giovanni Maria Matalon) informed the spirit of the custom, single-weight display typeface.

Website detail featuring Jacopo Mediaeval NF for text, with Plaak 3 Pradel and Sweet Gothic for headings and navigation

Type specimen for the custom Saraghina

Menu featuring Polliwog for headings and Roslindale Text for text.

Shop sign in the Saraghina typeface, with Sweet Gothic for the address