For printer Flash Reproductions’ 2013 client holiday gift, Goods & Services wished to follow its mandate of giving handcrafted products from local producers (previous years’ gifts include wine and chocolate). And, since they would be printing the labels and packaging themselves, we also wanted to highlight Flash’s in-house capabilities.

Together with Flash, we chose to treat recipients to a flight of three different grades of maple syrup, which we sourced from Matthews Maple Syrup, a family-owned farm in Powassan, Ontario. Ranging from light to medium to amber, each of the syrups was custom bottled and labelled with names that reflect that range: Tall, Handsome and Dark.

Continuing the theme of Canadiana, all three syrups are nestled inside a specially designed box, featuring classic Canadian patterns and images, from plaid to a deer head.

Thanks to precision measurement and cutting techniques, each bottle sits snugly inside its own slot in the custom-made box, held in place by the box’s label.

The holiday gift certainly made the season a little sweeter, and received kudos from around the Web, scoring features on Lovely Package [http://lovelypackage.com/goods-services-holiday-gift/], The Dieline [http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2014/3/16/2013-holiday-syrup-packaging] and Trend Hunter [http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/canadian-packaging].