Cases of Whiskey

Just days ago, a jury returned a mixed verdict after a two-week trial focusing on Bulleit's bottle design. Diageo North America, which owns the Bulleit brand of whiskeys, brought suit against Deutsche Family Wine & Spirits, which owns the Redemption brand of whiskeys. Diageo claimed that Deutsche's Redemption bottle design infringed on and diluted Bulleit's "trade dress," which, as I've explained before , refers to a product's design, shape, and overall feel.  Take a look at the side-by-side comparison of the bottles - it's not hard to guess why Diageo sued. Among other things, Diageo asserted that Deutsche's Redemption bottle copied Bulleit's "clear canteen-shaped glass bottle with rounded shoulders," the "embossed brand name above the label" on the glass, and the "arched text in the top line of the embossed brand name." The jury rejected Diageo's claim of infringement because it found that there was no li...

As whiskey ages in a barrel, some of it evaporates into the atmosphere. The amount lost is called the "angels' share" of the whiskey. Some estimate that heaven gets about two to five percent of the whiskey each year. While the economic (and heartbreaking) toll of the angels' share is well-known by distillers and consumers, the legal consequences are a different story.   Diageo Americas Supply, Inc. ages whiskey in Louisville, Kentucky at the former site of the famous Stitzel-Weller distillery. In 2012, a group of landowners who lived near Stitzel-Weller sued Diageo in federal court in Louisville based on Diageo's angels' share. Specifically, the landowners claimed that the ethanol in the angels' share combined with condensation and caused a "black, sooty" fungus to grow on their property. This fungus is commonly referred to as "whiskey fungus" and can be seen, for example, on Heaven Hill Distillery's white rickhouses where barrels o...