"Pepe Lopez is a very high-quality tequila," says Wayne Rose, brand manager at Brown-Forman, "yet we have felt as though the package does not do justice to the quality of the product." Introduced in June, the redesign covers six sizes, ranging from 50 mL to 1.75 L. Desgrippes Gobé (New York, NY) handled label design, which depicts Mexican coins against a shield-shaped label. Lawson Mardon (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) supplies the glue-applied labels, consisting of 58# paper laminated to foil, offset-printed in seven colors plus varnish. On the brand's best sellers, the 750-mL and the 1.75-L sizes, Native American petroglyphs are custom-molded into the sidewalls of the glass. Brown-Forman owns the proprietary molds for these. The neck label is a 50-micron (2-mil) polyvinyl chloride shrink band that doubles as a TE device. It's gravure-printed in five colors plus matte finish by Uniflex (Las Vegas, NV). Twist-off polypropylene caps are from Captive Plastics (Louisville, KY). Although prices vary by state, Pepe Lopez is considered a mid-priced tequila. Says Rose, "We intend to move the price upward commensurate with the quality of the product and the image we create with the packaging and advertising."
