alcohol beverages generally

There are something like two dozen class action lawsuits floating around, against beer and spirits companies. Many are in the early stages. But information is starting to accumulate about the damages and fees at issue. For example, the Templeton Rye case is already settled, with about $750,000 in attorney fees going to the plaintiffs. The Maker’s Mark and Jim Beam cases are done, with nothing going to the plaintiffs. The Kirin beer case is wrapped up with $1 million in attorney fees going to the plaintiffs.

To get more visibility, about where all this may be headed, I looked beyond the alcohol beverage cases, to food labeling cases more generally. There are a lot of them. It turns out, there are so many, that they have provoked not only a blog, but also a study from The Brookings Institution, about a serious problem with a proliferation of suits about “natural,” “nutritious,” and “wholesome.” The Brookings study is of particular interest to me, not just due to the timely subject, but because I worked there briefly after college as a low level researcher. While researching for Stephen Hess, I sat with such (now) luminaries as Gary Mucciaroni and Robert Katzmann (when they were probably in their twenties).

Nicole Negowetti, a professor at Valparaiso...

Last month the firedragon on the right sued the firedevil on the left. This month, the devil fired back.

Sazerac at first alleged that the labeling on the left, for Stout’s beer-type product, is way too similar to Fireball’s appearance, as used for many years on its top-selling Fireball cinnamon whisky. Sazerac’s lawsuit is no big surprise because Sazerac is quite aggressive, Fireball has a lot worth protecting, and umm the products do look quite a lot alike to this casual observer. Stout tends to say the products are not alike (only one has a glass bottle, a devil, is beer-like, is American). But even Stout does not go too far in saying the products don’t look alike.

Stout argued:

Sazerac’s claims are barred because the term “fire” and all of the claimed elements of the alleged FIREBALL Trade Dress described in the Complaint are used so frequently by third parties in connection with products characterized by a cinnamon or spicy hot taste that consumers do not perceive them as identifying or signifying any particular source. The use of “fireball” to mean a spicy hot cinnamon flavor is widespread across all manner of foods and beverages, including alcoholic beverages. For example, Atomic Fireballs [were] introduced in 1954. The term “fire” is commonly used to refer...

Is it just a matter of time before TTB is scutinizing cannabis labels — for sneaky references to — wine?

I hope so. That would be great.

This article about cannabis beer got me to thinking about all manner of cannabinoid-related issues.

Did TTB approve the label yet? Not that I can see. I don’t find any Indica label approved for this Colorado brewery so far. But I do find this Dank label, which is pretty close. The label mentions a run-in with “the man” and pounds of resinous west coast Cannabacae. Dad and Dudes (the brewer) did a wonderful job of securing some trademark rights in this important term (DANK) sure to be much and more in demand in the future. But the label oddly implies that the company has a trademark registration on the term DANK in and of itself, when it does not appear that anyone does. I wonder if D&D’s registration will be sufficient, someday, to block pot purveyors from using the term DANK as part of their branding, and if pot will be considered highly-related to beer/wine/spirits.

Thanks to LabelVision, it’s quite easy to see that TTB has allowed only two “cannabis” labels so far:  vodka with cannabis sativa, and Cabernet Franc with notes of cannabis (“pairs...