The Mey Diageo Rakı Experience Center

The Mey Diageo Raki Experience Center, designed by I-AM, is located in the world's largest suma production facility in the Alaşehir region of Manisa, where the vineyards, the raw material of Rakı, are located.

The Mey Diageo Rakı Experience Center is located in the company’s biggest suma facility in the world, the Alaşehir region, well known for its lush grape vines, one of the main ingredients of the Turkish traditional alcoholic drink: Rakı (alcoholic drink obtained by distillation of grape juice). Aiming to showcase the production journey of their latest craft rakı, Mey Diageo collaborated with us to bring to life a unique experience for visitors to remember the heritage and the rich story behind Rakı; and explore the innovation and production complexity through an immersive journey.

Innovation Meets Tradition

The Experience Center targeted Mey Diageo’s business partners, chefs, restaurant and hotel owners, managements, journalists, and influencers. Our design process started with detailed in-depth interviews with the targeted personas in order to understand their experiential targets.

The journey to the experience center starts off with the guests picked from their homes and driving through the changing landscape of Western Anatolia; to be greeted with an immersive experience into the rich heritage of the Rakı production process.

Our design strategy was built around an inspirational brand history; a heritage brand that continued its success in spite of marketing challenges but strengthened with deep information creating trust and assurance in the brand quality. Working around the 4C’s i.e. communicate, connect, contribute and create; the journey leads to an empathic brand connection by allowing the visitor to learn and co-create.

From Vine to Table

With a wholistic design approach, we used technology and digital elements in all stages of the creation process. Aimed to inspire the visitor at the moment they are picked from their homes up till the end of the tour; the initial brief to create a tasting area for craft Rakı was expanded to other areas of the factory resulting in an overall transformation of facility, with an updated design language, bringing an industrial look & feel together with a brand story and strong digital design components throughout the visitor journey.

Each design component embedded into the overall production journey of Rakı aimed to reflect the function of each segment within the factory. Upon arriving to the factory, visitors are immersed in a sensory tour starting with a trip through the various production areas arriving at the “Journey of the Grape and Anise” where they are able to smell the main ingredients that create the magical taste of Rakı and view the complete production process via video mapping on 3D models of the distillery leaving visitors in awe of the detail put into the production process. The variety of the final product is showcased on the “Brand Wall” where each different brand of Rakı ever produced throughout history by Mey Diageo can be viewed.

This area lives right next to the “innovation area” where tradition meets exploration and the craft Rakı is produced in special copper distillery tanks. Visitors can read the production details, and the chemical formulas on the walls covered in tiles to create a lab feel expressing the importance of the intricate chemical make-up of the drink and the standardization that is required to achieve the best quality. Plywood wall coverings create a welcome contrast to the clean tiles and are decorated with drawings of the map indication the grape producing regions as well as the drawings of the plant itself. This contrast tells the story of the natural ingredient and its transformation in the lab.

The “hall of masters” is an homage to the people whose work made Rakı the favorite drink it is today. Responding to the client’s request to create a locker space for storing personal belongings while entering the production areas, we created space that tells the story of the past evoking excitement for viewing the present.

The tour ends, leaving time for many instagrammable spots along the way, with a favorite feature of allowing guests to taste the product generating deep understanding of the drink in line with the detailed effort and wisdom integrated in the process of bringing it from vine to table. Called the “Tasting Wheel” visitors are able to learn about the flavor profile of different types of Rakı with information reflected through video mapping on to the table.

The Mey Diageo Alaşehir Experience Center liberates the story and rich history of Rakı from the confinement of the factory, using the collision of traditional and digital creating a powerful asset for the brand’s story.