Grand Spirits specializes in Natural Wine (the official wine of Creative Directors) and Mezcal (the official Tequila of Creative Directors), so naturally, they asked some Creative Directors to creative direct them into getting a new name, new logo, new brand.

I ran into a fun, modern problem with this project — which was coming up with a name that spoke to the “Mezcaleria” aspect of the bar, but was also something that wouldn’t get the owner into trouble. I found a word that is both Spanish and English, and that is also neither of those. I didn’t really find the word, it’s a fairly common word. But I thought of the word. Then I said, hey, what if it was this word?

You would think Monstera meant something, but it only means Monstera, as in the Monstera Delicioso plant. The way you say Monstera in any Latin-based language is Monstera. It’s called a “translingual” word. And if telling a client a word is “translingual” isn’t a stroke of woke genius, I don’t know what is.

So there you go. Monstera Mezcaleria. It gave them the directive to decorate the bar with Monstera plants to create a jungle-like atmosphere as you pour back some smoky, trash-tinged, throat-burning cocktails, but also implied MONSTERS, or in this case, Monstruos.