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Ale-8-One's iconic green bottles sport an updated label Monday at the Winchester plant.
Ale-8-One, the regionally beloved ginger-citrus soft drink manufactured in Winchester, Kentucky, is celebrating its 89th birthday with updated packaging aimed at broadening its appeal.
Fielding Rogers, the company’s 34-year-old fourth-generation owner and CEO, said the time was right to refresh the iconic soda’s image. Claiming “double-digit growth” in Cincinnati and Louisville markets, the company is pushing into new territory where Ale-8 isn’t as well known.
Rogers said the goal is to expand the drink’s audience without turning off the people who already love it.
Featuring cleaner lines, bolder colors and text incorporating the company’s history, the new packaging reads more as a refinement on the past than a change of course. Perhaps the biggest change is the photograph image of Red River Gorge that serves as a backdrop. But the label is largely unchanged, and the iconic green bottles — in some cases returnable — are here to stay. That’s all by design.
“We wanted something that clearly conveyed to all our current fans that, ‘This is the same Ale-8; it’s the same flavor, same formula we’ve always had,’ ” Rogers said. “At the same time, we wanted to modernize it.”
To achieve its goals, Ale-8 turned to Louisville-based advertising firm strADegy to help with the redesign. Chris Becker, a strategist for the firm, said a year of study produced results. Becker said a key influence and inspiration came from the seemingly ever-expanding craft beer industry.
“It’s very similar,” Becker said. “The key is authenticity and story-telling. This company has a great story to tell.”
But tradition remains key at Ale-8, said Rogers, who noted that he personally mixes the secret formula based on the notes of his great-great uncle, inventor and company founder G.L. Wainscott.
“That’s one of my favorite days,” Rogers said. “When you’re done with that, you smell like the secret flavor, which, it smells great. It’s very, very potent stuff, but it smells great.”
Ale-8 employs about 100 workers. Rogers said the bottling operation runs 10-hour shifts four days a week and has in recent times surpassed 10,000 bottles daily.
Rogers said the company’s distribution partners are helping it reach new customers in new cities. The most important partner is Coca-Cola, which is ironic since Wainscott successfully battled the cola giant in court during the early days.
Ale-8’s new labels are rolling off the production line but may take several weeks to show up in all outlets.