Beverage company Diageo has produced what it believes is the world's lightest standard-sized glass spirits bottle for its Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ultra whisky, launching next week at the London Design Festival.
Where a typical 700-millilitre bottle spirits bottle weighs around 500 grams, the special-edition Johnnie Walker bottle weighs just 180 grams without a lid, and was made in a quest to reduce the carbon emissions from packaging.
The hand-blown bottle has an adapted teardrop shape, with a rounded bottom and concave neck, but at the same time it echos aspects of Diageo's recognisable Johnnie Walker bottles in its slightly squared-off sides and shoulder.
Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ultra features the world's lightest glass whisky bottle Diageo global design director Jeremy Lindley told Dezeen that the project was born out of an ideation session on the future of luxury, where the team identified an emerging trend prizing lightness and sustainability over extravagance.
"We thought, what if our luxury products, instead of being in the heaviest glass, they were in the lightest and they celebrated beauty and delicacy"" he said.
His team then pursued a "test-and-learn" approach to develop the bottle, working with glassblowers to explore what shapes and techniques allowed for the use of the least amount of glass without the object breaking.
The artisans advised that the most effective strategy would be to follow the natural, balloon-like shape the glass...