Determining bottle color standards with Peachridge 6-Log Drakes
14 September 2013
Michael Seeliger (Brooklyn, Wisconsin) recently visited us at Peach Ridge where Mike took exacting color measurements of my 6-log Drakes Plantation Bitters run and various other bottles using a color spectrophotometer that he designed. The device, which is pictured below, is carefully lowered into each bottle and a color reading is taken. This is only after it has been carefully calibrated using pieces of stained glass.
The eventual goal will be to measure enough bottles to get a standard chart of bottle and glass colors. So down the road you might have the following for some of the greens. Two amber readings are also listed.
3138 – Teal Green
3646 – Forest Green
3845 – Grass Green
4146 – Citron Green
4547 – Moss Green
5344 – Light Amber
5544 – Amber
This is pretty exciting work as color is subjective and is seen differently by each person. Having a standard might help a person understand a bottle color before it is added to a collection. Of course nothing will ever replace seeing a bottle color with your own eyes under various lighting conditions. I believe Mike is headed to Jeff Burkhardts to do the same process with his wonderful Drakes.
Read More: Color Measurement – Latest from Michael Seeliger
That is Mike on the right reading a color graph from a greenish Drakes in front of me on the left. We set up in a dark, back hallway to the laundry room as to not have any other natural light influence.
Arbitrary numbers were assigned to each 6-log Drakes for recording purposes.
Chart showing the arbitrary bottle numbers and the ‘X’ ‘Y’ coordinates from the color spectrophotometer
Reading for a yellow-green Drake’s Plantation Bitters
Approximation of points on palette corresponding to Meyer collection of 6-log Drake’s Plantation Bitters
