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Vitreous Whiskey

#cbb257
Notes

Vitreous Whiskey (#CBB257) is a true amber with a warm character. It leans warm, pulling light toward red, orange, and yellow. Naturally inviting, it suits editorial and hospitality contexts. Its HSL profile (47°, 53%, 57%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary blue. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#cbb257
RGB
rgb(203, 178, 87)
HSL
hsl(47, 53%, 57%)
HWB
hwb(47 34% 20%)
OKLCH
oklch(76.7% 0.115 94.2)
HSV
hsv(47, 57%, 80%)
LAB
lab(73.04% -2.14 49.05)
LCH
lch(73.04% 49.10 92.50)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 12%, 57%, 20%)

Etymology

Vitreous
adjective

Latin vitreus, glass-like — derived from vitrum (glass). As a color modifier, vitreous implies a clear-and-glassy quality where the hue carries the optical clarity of polished crown-glass. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to pellucid and crystalline in usage.

Whiskey
noun

The distilled grain spirit — particularly Scotch, Irish, and American whiskies aged in oak barrels. The color refers to a 12-year-old single-malt Scotch in a glass: a soft, slightly red-shifted warm gold-brown with the optical clarity of barrel-aged spirit. Warmer than honey, drier than caramel.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

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Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#cbb257
Original
#c2af4e
Protanopia
#c8b75b
Deuteranopia
#daa69e
Tritanopia
#b1b1b1
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon White
2.09:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
10.05:1

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