Hunter Luxury Wins Double Gold for Jack Daniel's x McLaren Halo MK1
Luxury packaging specialist earns international recognition at 2026 MUSE Design Awards for brand collaboration and limited-edition engineering.
Hunter Luxury has secured double Gold at the 2026 MUSE Design Awards for the Jack Daniel's x McLaren Halo MK1 Limited Edition, marking international recognition for both the technical design and engineering required to bring the limited edition to life.
Following evaluation by the MUSE Design Awards' international judging panel, the Halo MK1 was named Gold winner in two categories: Packaging Design – Brand Partnership / Collaborations and Packaging Design – Limited Edition. The double victory recognises the translation of two globally recognised brands into one compelling physical experience, and the technical achievement required to turn an ambitious creative concept into a limited edition that could be manufactured consistently at scale.
The original Halo MK1 design concept was created by the Jack Daniel's Design team at Brown-Forman as part of the brand's partnership with the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team, taking inspiration from Formula 1's Halo safety device. Hunter Luxury was tasked with bringing that ambitious creative vision to life, leading the development, engineering, prototyping and manufacture required to turn it into a fully engineered, manufacturable limited edition.
Bringing the concept to life required more than 50 custom components spanning eight materials and eight manufacturing processes. The result is an experience designed to feel remarkably simple, despite the complexity required to deliver that movement precisely and repeatedly. Finished in electrophoresis matte black with McLaren Papaya accents, Halo combines the visual identities of its two partners with details drawn from their respective histories. The number 58 honours the racing number used by Bruce McLaren, while the number 7 references Jack Daniel's Old No. 7.
Paul Hamilton, Head of Sales & Marketing at Hunter Luxury, said: "The challenge with Halo wasn't simply to make the mechanism work. It was to translate an extraordinary creative idea into something that could be manufactured consistently at scale, while preserving the simplicity and elegance of the original concept. That takes an enormous amount of collaboration, engineering and attention to detail, so to receive two MUSE Gold awards, recognising both the limited-edition design and the brand collaboration behind it, is particularly special."
The double Gold further strengthens Halo MK1's growing international awards record. The project has already received Gold at the London Design Awards, Gold and Silver at the Tokyo Design Awards and an AmeriStar Design Excellence Award, as well as Bronze at the International Spirits Challenge. It has also been shortlisted at the 2026 Pentawards and named a finalist in both the London Packaging Week Innovation Awards and UK Packaging Awards. The MUSE Design Awards is an international programme recognising excellence across architecture, interior, product, lighting, packaging and conceptual design, with its international jury bringing together senior creative and design professionals.
The dual win underscores the market appetite for limited-edition spirits packaging that fuses brand storytelling with functional engineering—a category increasingly dominated by cross-category collaborations targeting affluent consumers.