Jack Daniel’s celebrates Independence Day in the USA with a true representation of what craft really is. The whisky brand’s annual tradition is to collaborate with independent artists to create a series of man-crafted posters ahead of July 4—in 2011, Jack Daniel’s unveiled letterpress prints, and now it is taking the idea further and presents a bunch of hand-made posters to mark the occasion. To add the atmosphere of authenticity, the three artists, who partnered with the brand this year, created five unique posters with their own hands using traditional techniques, including embroidery, fred cutting, painting and more.

Jack Daniel’s is aiming to outperform Coca-Cola in delivering festive spirit with X-mas commercials or at least introduce a new element to the celebration with the release of a new campaign, developed by Arnold Worldwide in Boston, with the “It’s not what’s under the tree that matters, it’s who’s around it” tagline. The Brown-Forman Corporation’s brand believes that the new ‘barrel tree’ approach will touch people’s hearts for years, and will become as iconic as Coca-Cola’s Christmas elements. “We hope it will be the start of a new tradition,” tells Carmen D’Ascendis, director of global marketing for Jack Daniel’s at Brown-Forman in Louisville, Ky, to The New York Times.

Mixology and bartending are art just like painting or photography, and this notion is proved by the fact that global alcohol drinks brands and companies like Stella Artois, 42BELOW, Pernod Picard, Belvedere Vodka launch cups, competitions and communities to celebrate the best professionals in the field. Brown-Forman’s Finlandia Vodka brand is hosting another competition, the 14th Annual International Finlandia Vodka Cup, on February 1, 2012 to pay tribute to bartenders who reached perfection in what they do. The brand is calling the industry representatives to join the competition by submitting an application online at www.finlandia.com—the brand will shortlist 19 entrants and the global audience will choose another one, and all of them will head to Finlandia to fight for the title of the champion and win a total of $25,000.

Brown Forman announced the launch of its newly designed Herradura Tequila bottle that captures the essence and heritage of the brand name. In 2009, Brown Forman hired Hirst Pacific Ltd to assist in redesigning the bottle. The mission for Kenneth Hirst, president of Hirst Pacific Ltd, was to work in conjunction with the Brown Forman design team to develop a new Herradura bottle that would unify Herradura’s global markets, replacing the round bottle in Mexico and the square bottle in the USA.