Today, I’d like to talk to you about the spirit of Rawcember. And by spirit I mean gin… but I’ll try to hold back on the puns.
The TL;DR: we made a gin in collaboration with Tevsjö Destilleri. It’s not commercially available, but if enough people want us to make it so, we can look into it.
But in the meantime, let’s take a look at this gin in three different ways. How you can talk about what you create? Some storytelling? Maybe some brandying? It could work, but it could also turn out a sour mash in the end. However, after consulting some friends (thanks Jack, Jim, Johnnie, José) they’ve convinced me that this can be both fun and maybe somewhat interesting, while also conveying some sort of basic concrete lesson about vivacious verbiage.
This is…
A bottle of gin. Raw Fury made it in collaboration with Tevsjö Destilleri. It’s not available commercially (shout at our twitter if that’s something we should look into). The color scheme is nice. It does what other gin bottles do.
This is…
A specific recipe and packaging that represents the Raw Fury heritage. The ingredients have all been sourced from the different points of origin that the founders have, as well as the founding place of the company and our sister studio Fury Studios.
By handpicking the ingredients based on these things we can build a nice story about how the bottle of gin, at a glance, might look like a gin bottle that does what other gin bottles do. But it is, in fact, a complex blend of ingredients, places, and innovative mixes coming together in a bold, fiery flavor with an unusually high proof that lets you know that a little bit of this gin will do more than what your usual gin would do – just like the company. We’re a weird mix of unusual and varied ingredients, operating at a higher capacity than expected, and consistently doing more than you expected with less than you thought possible, and we got the proof to back it up. It’s a damn fine gin, built on the same foundations that makes Raw Fury a damn good publisher.
This is…
An insight into the company culture and injokes, as well as the freedom afforded to the folks working here to get a stupid idea and run it from “wouldn’t it be fun” to deluxe limited edition gin.
Raw Fury is a publisher, the folks working here are games industry peeps doing games industry stuff. Or? Fact is that one of the greatest things about Raw Fury is the willingness to let people run with an idea (as long as you can motivate its existence; in this case, a surprise gift to partners and such) and take it from “uh I had a think in the shower and this might be stupid, buuuut” to “ok, so packaging has been done and stuff is moving out in time for the holidays”. Projects like this emphasize one of my favorite parts with Raw Fury as a partner and as a place of work: it’s a space open for ideas, on or off the beaten path.
This is a bottle of gin, but this also tells you about the culture that permeates our marketing discussions, scouting strategy, and conference setups. It’s a small peek behind the curtain — not just into what silly jokes I personally find funny (sorry for the copy everyone) — but into how ‘anything goes,’ as long as you can drive and run it. Doesn’t matter if you know how to run it (I sure didn’t know the work involved to make a gin, but Tevsjö has been terrific with helping out on that end), just that you’re willing to do it and solve the issues as they come by.
It’s also a great example of how folks are willing to spend time on projects outside of their normal responsibilities, as this wouldn’t have been possible without the Raw Fury Secret Gin Crew that was assembled in the late spring of this year. It might look like a bottle of gin with a ton of shitty puns written on it, but it’s actually a small artifact that encapsulates a lot of the small parts and pieces that influences everything from the devs we partner with to publishing our contract online to what it feels like working here.
So…
It’s just a bottle of gin, and that’s the least important part of it.
– Johan
