Boxes of Eden: Krogman’s Fruit Flavored Whiskey
“To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core…“ -John Keats, To Autumn
On May 10th, 1869 the last ceremonial spike was driven into the transcontinental railroad in Promontory Utah, connecting the east and west coasts of the United States for the first time. This 1900 mile track was just the beginning of the expansion of commerce in the US. All the sudden, family fruit and vegetable farmers on the west coast had growing urban markets opened to them in the east. Suddenly co-ops and large farm operators had to compete for attention, and create brands and labels evocative of the place of origin as well as the quality of their flavor.
Colorful depictions of Americana, plenty, and vertile valleys stretching to the horizon.
From roughly 1870 until 1950 fruit and vegetable growers would employ an army of anonymous designers to create iconic labels for their brands to grab the attention of buyers and consumers out east. These labels depict an edenic American landscape, fruited plains stretched to the horizon, below which purple mountains peaked in snow stand century. Larger than life depictions of the fruit itself would sit, dew covered and exaggeratedly large in the foreground, often contrasted with other depictions of Americana like happy healthy children, Indian Chiefs, and pin up girls. The land in these illustrations is also literally bursting with fruitfulness. Like Granpa Joad’s encomium in The Grapes of Wrath to California vineyards, where he’ll literally reach up, grab a bunch of grapes and squash ‘em in his face, until the juice runs down his chin, indeed the imagery depicted on these crates makes it seem like the fruitfulness of the continent itself was endless, all you had to do to grab a piece of it, buy a piece of it and take a bite. And so the commingling of the imagery of American mythology along with savvy marketing and the application of new technology in the form of widely and cheaply available lithography to make the labels, and the transport to move the product to market underscores the vital if not ironic nature of American economic experiment. As the Joads predictibley found out, California was NOT bursting with opportunity for them, or anyone really, but it matters very little, it was and is a dream that’s being sold, with the right mix of technology and mythology to deliver it, a Carousel of Progress for sure, which continues to turn, only end up exactly where it started.
It’s within this context that we find ourselves in the American whiskey category today, a growing market not unlike turn of the century citrus, ripe for myth making, already firmly entrenched in its own founder myths, from Jack Daniel’s to Jim Beam. With the category already growing at a 23% clip in the last 52 week Neilson xAOC+ package data, we continue to see new flavor entrants like Skrewball peanut butter whiskey, drive the “nut” flavor category all the way to number two tucked in between honey and apple. Impressive especially for an independent brand. With peach, cinnamon, cherry, and vanilla rounding out the top performers, each continuing to drive the US whiskey category to new heights we see below the growth continues.
And so we decided to grow our current Krogman’s brand to include three new flavors, all combos, one of which evokes a flavor famous in our local market. Krogman’s Honey Apple, Persinnamon, a delicious combination of cinnamon and local persimmon, and Krogman’s Sweet Peach round out the offering. The labels themselves directly harken back to the historic fruit crate art of the early 20th century, bringing in larger than life fruit imagery paired with the endless valley floors of fruit and high mellow peaks in the background. The original Krogmans, a historic Indiana brand founded in Tell City Indiana in 1863 by German immigrant August Krogman would most likely approve, as the distillery itself originally produced apple and fruit brandies, commiserate with the German schnapp distilling tradition along with their ryes and bourbons. The three flavor offerings combine four of the top seven flavors in the US Whiskey category. By doing duo flavor offerings were able to meet the consumer where they are with growing palate complexities in a higher end offering. Priced at $19.99, we believe these new Krogman’s flavors have what it takes to compete, and win in the growing US Whiskey category.
