Happy Bloomsday! In late 2019 I was approached by Andrew Kelly of Wicklow Heather Restaurant and House in Wicklow about the use of my James Joyce caricature as part of the label design for their Bloomsday limited edition gin.
“About 10 years ago to the day we began collecting very rare books and memorabilia for our Writer’s Room which over time has turned into one of the largest collections of work of first edition Irish literature.
To celebrate the Writer’s Room we have distilled our own limited edition gin. The Gin’s name is “Bloomsday” which celebrates James Joyce in particular and his life.
When working on the label for the bottle I came across your caricature of Joyce for Bloomsday. I absolutely loved how quirky it was and instantly wanted to base our design around it.
We are producing a limited number of 200 bottles of the gin where the label will be prominent.”
It was so wonderful to be approached in this way and we worked out the details for the use of the James Joyce caricature. I think the resulting label looks great:
Anyone whose work is image-based will know how frequently other businesses will just use your work as a free stock image library so the Wicklow Heather Restaurant properly sourcing the image and working with the artist really meant a lot.
It really looks like an amazing venue and I hope to get up for a visit as things begin to normalise, and maybe even sample that gin!