Girl on bottle goes topless as you guzzle

A former rock band drummer and two mates have taken on the Australian beer market with a unique world first marketing concept for their new beer.

The label is Skinny Blonde, a low-carb beer that is thriving on the current popularity of Australia’s new crop of ‘healthy’ beers. But there is another reason it is popular: the Skinny Blonde bottle features a 1950s-style pin-up called Daisy whose red bikini disappears as the beer level drops and the bottle warms up, thanks to the modern ink technology used on the labels.

The savvy marketing ploy was born three years ago when 34-year-old Hamish Rosser and his mates — actor Richie Harkham, 29, and artist Jarrod Taylor, 33 — decided to act on a “drunken idea that actually worked”. “We had the idea of a pin-up girl, we thought everyone uses women in their advertising campaigns so why not put it on a bottle?” Rosser, the drummer in the Australian band The Vines, told the Times, London.

“So we had this idea of the disappearing bikini and researched into disappearing ink. Then we did a few trial runs and when we realised it worked we were stoked, we were over the moon.”

The trio, who lived within streets of each other in Bondi, formed the company Brother’s Ink and began experimental home brewing in Taylor’s laundry with the aim of producing a Japanese-style dry “session beer” three years ago. “We wanted to make a beer that you can have several of rather than ales which you have one or two then you move on,” Rosser, who has a degree in chemical engineering, said.

After some years with The Vines, an Australian garage rock band who burst on to the international scene before singer Craig Nicholls’ health issues put them on hiatus last year, Rosser said expanding Skinny Blonde was now his top priority.