Nobody knows what actually started the Prescott fires of 1900, but what if it was just a brazen sphinx moth drawn to flame? Conflagration is a response to the fires that destroyed mining towns at the turn of the century and the carelessness that fueled them.
The original pencil sketch above was vectorized to resemble swirling curls of smoke.
A variety of sphinx moth antennae were drawn to pair with the curling typography and label shape.
The Brisley Drug Company is a real company that headquartered in Prescott's downtown for decades, but the fire map shows that their Corner Store pharmacy was devoured by the devastating conflagration reported in the Arizona Weekly Journal Miner on July 19, 1900. Brisley and his Corner Store were also advertisers in the Miner, sometimes featuring remedies of miraculous effect.
I imagined what elixir Brisley might have blended up after the fire given the abundance of charred wood, despair, and juniper surrounding his city. The resulting firewater is Conflagration brand Charcoal Filtered Juniper Bitters, a cousin of what we know today as gin.
