Part of the challenge and complexity is that label rules and trends change often. As recently as a few years ago, TTB would balk about pre-eminently famous people, such as these, on alcohol beverage labels. Founding Fathers Beer is bottled by CBC Latrobe in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. I tend to doubt that TTB would allow a President Obama label, even today (except maybe as a caricature), but George Bush, Bill Clinton and the prior Presidents may well be fair game now or soon.

Plenty of regulators don’t know or don’t care about the difference between wine and spirits. Paul Jorgensen reviewed a recent and noteworthy trademark dispute showing this. Paul is a lawyer and he explains as below.

If you’re reaching for a beer, you’ll probably not accidentally grab that bottle of vodka, will you? Looking to pair that great salmon dish with a nice chardonnay usually won’t mean that you accidentally grab a six pack at the convenience store, right? Yes, even though you know that there’s a big difference between beer, wine and spirits (how they are made, sold and who drinks them, for example), you may be surprised to find out that not everyone does. The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, for example, does not know the difference and continues to demonstrate this with new legal cases decided through its judicial branch, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). Who cares? You will if you are trying to register your beer, wine or spirits trademark. Unless you want to waste your money on an application that the PTO will reject, it is increasingly important to do a thorough trademark search first for any confusingly similar marks. That search should cover not only products the same or similar to your product (e.g., beer), but also all other alcohol products...

It’s not every day that you see COLA news on the front page of the newspaper, but it does happen from time to time. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal featured COLA news on the front page. The story explained that no less than three companies have been trying to use Buffalo Bill as part of their branding — with two of them fighting it out in court. “The two entrepreneurs are fighting in court for the exclusive right to sell beer that trades on the musky aura of adventure surrounding Army-scout-turned-bison-hunter-turned-sharpshooting-showman William F. Cody.” Eric Bischoff got his first COLA in March of 2011 (and the second one is here). He is a “former professional wrestling icon.” While Bischoff already has the COLAs and applied for the trademark, it looks like Mike Darby has been selling beer under the Buffalo Bill name since before Bischoff. But “Mr. Darby failed to get federal approval of his label, as required by the law. (Mr. Darby says he thought the brewer and distributor had taken care of that.)” Darby owns a hotel in Cody, Wyoming “built by Buffalo Bill in 1902.” Darby “had to pull his beer from the market” while awaiting label approval. The third company is affiliated with Bill Owens, but is not interested...

It’s clearly okay to go home, add some tomato juice to your vodka, and call it a bloody mary. And it’s almost certainly a bad idea to go home and fire up your small pot still, to make just a little spirits. Somewhere in the middle, we now have “High Proof Micro-Batch Distilled Neutral Spirit Designed for Infusing.” It comes in a 375 ml. bottle, at 160 proof. It is made by The Northern Maine Distilling Company, of Houlton, Maine. The first related approval seems to go back about one year. It mentions that the vodka is designed for “infusions, extractions, mixology, and culinary applications.” The information-packed website explains:

160 Proof?  Yikes!  Don’t freak over the proof!  The high concentration of alcohol makes Twenty 2 HPS perfect for infusing fruits, vegetables, meats, or dairy into vibrant liqueurs or flavored vodkas.  Think of the 160 Proof like a very sharp knife in your kitchen.  If you handle the knife with respect, it can perform amazing tasks.  Same with the High Proof Spirit.  It’s “sharp blade” creates infusions in hours, not weeks.

We think Northern’s COLA is interesting because we don’t know of too many other products designed for this manner of use. Also, the label underscores that TTB has no problem with...

Some of the Clown Shoes beer labels, such as Tramp Stamp and Lubrication, are leading to lots of controversy. This got us to reading about the graphic designer for both. While we reserve judgment about the labels at issue, the blog post by the label designer for Clown Shoes is so good and vigorous that we wanted to cover it here. The designer of the label on the left is Stacey George. She is based in Massachusetts, and she talks about the issues in a July 6, 2011 post entitled “Sometimes, a Pipe is Just a Pipe.”

“Are Clown Shoes’ labels offensive?” Sure. Why not? Offensive is a subjective term. If you look at the labels and find yourself offended, there you go. Do you have the right to say so? Abso-friggin-lutely! Shout it from the highest mountain, or your Twitter account, or your brothers’ website, whatever your bullhorn is, use it, loud and proud. Here, let me loan you a sandwich board and a bell, you can be offended Town-Crier style, I got your back.

My labels for Clown Shoes—which were named Best Craft Beer Art of 2011 by PourCurator.com—are not illustrated with a sexist intent. For instance, a Tramp Stamp is a tattoo placed on the lower back...