Line · 1979–2021 · 4 editions

Blue Label

Absolut Blue Label is the standard Absolut Vodka bottle, the one that launched the brand in 1979. Its shape came from an eighteenth-century Swedish medicine bottle found in a Stockholm antique shop, and the first bottles carried their text straight on the unlabelled glass. The bottle has been redrawn over the decades without losing that silhouette: in 2015 the agency Brand Union led the deepest overhaul, with new lettering by the calligrapher Luca Barcellona and a medallion redrawn by the engraver Martin Mörck, and the 2021 bottle pared everything back to a handwritten “Swedish vodka”, Country of Sweden engraved into the glass and a paper label for the details.

4 editions

Blue Label 2021 2021 · 19 variants A pared-back restyling of the standard bottle. After more than fifty years the printed text gives way to a handwritten “Swedish vodka”; Country of Sweden moves into the glass as an engraving, a paper label carries the product information and L.O. Smith's signature, and the back of the bottle takes an illustration of the village of Åhus.
Blue Label 2015 2015 · 15 variants The 2015 redesign, run by the agency Brand Union and the most thorough reworking the bottle had had. The calligrapher Luca Barcellona cut a new script off Swedish lettering, simple and modern; the illustrator and engraver Martin Mörck redrew the medallion, putting Lars Olsson Smith on the glass at the height of his success. The silhouette was tightened at the same time — sharper shoulders, straighter neck and body, flattened base, less glass — and a brand signifier added to the back.
Blue Label 2011 2011 · 16 variants The 2011 standard bottle. The text on the glass is rewritten ("Every drop..." version) and the medallion redrawn, with L.O. Smith now turned to the right.
Blue Label 1979 1979 · 27 variants The bottle that started it all, launched in 1979 and drawn from an eighteenth-century Swedish medicine bottle found in a Stockholm antique shop. The glass is unpainted, unlabelled and carries the text directly — no medallion at the shoulder on the earliest runs, which are also wider and lower than what followed. It appeared at several strengths across markets, and in a plastic version.

2021

Blue Label 2021 19 variants A pared-back restyling of the standard bottle. After more than fifty years the printed text gives way to a handwritten “Swedish vodka”; Country of Sweden moves into the glass as an engraving, a paper label carries the product information and L.O. Smith's signature, and the back of the bottle takes an illustration of the village of Åhus.
2015

Blue Label 2015 15 variants The 2015 redesign, run by the agency Brand Union and the most thorough reworking the bottle had had. The calligrapher Luca Barcellona cut a new script off Swedish lettering, simple and modern; the illustrator and engraver Martin Mörck redrew the medallion, putting Lars Olsson Smith on the glass at the height of his success. The silhouette was tightened at the same time — sharper shoulders, straighter neck and body, flattened base, less glass — and a brand signifier added to the back.
2011

Blue Label 2011 16 variants The 2011 standard bottle. The text on the glass is rewritten ("Every drop..." version) and the medallion redrawn, with L.O. Smith now turned to the right.
1979

Blue Label 1979 27 variants The bottle that started it all, launched in 1979 and drawn from an eighteenth-century Swedish medicine bottle found in a Stockholm antique shop. The glass is unpainted, unlabelled and carries the text directly — no medallion at the shoulder on the earliest runs, which are also wider and lower than what followed. It appeared at several strengths across markets, and in a plastic version.

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