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News & ArtsWednesday, September 8, 2010
Drunk Would You Like a Cocktail™?
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 8:08 AM
Over at The Atlantic, there's a discussion of trademarking cocktail recipes. A bartender* who gave a seminar at Tales of the Cocktail, the big yearly cocktail convention in New Orleans, on "protecting one's intellectual property as a bartender" is quoted saying:
"Someone needs to get sued... to set a precedent."
This fellow, Eben Freeman, is "best known as the creator of smoked Coke and 'solid' cocktails at the now-defunct Tailor in Manhattan's SoHo."
Here in Seattle, Andrew Friedman, the owner of Liberty, responds:
So, let me get this straight: First the guy makes sense when he decries “the whole culture of the celebrity chef “ in the cocktail world, and then he goes on to want to sue someone for co-opting a recipe for a cocktail? He goes from being the voice of reason to the voice of idiocy in three paragraphs flat. I was at Tales of the Cocktail, and I can assure you that there were many great and notable seminars (did you miss the Suntory Hibiki blending seminar? Ooooo. That was amazing), but this so-nuff was not one of them. Sorry, Eben—you’ve done some great things for the cocktail world, but this nonsense does you no favors.
Over at Techdirt, they're siding with Liberty (calling Freeman "another person in another industry whining about not getting enough monopoly privileges") and also providing some enlightenment about intellectual property in general (and trademark law vs. copyright law vs. patent law specifically).
Good lord. Is it cocktail o'clock yet?
*Or maybe "liquormaestro"? One senses he wouldn't want to be called a bartender, and I believe the term "mixologist" has been officially shunned.
2
It's always cocktail o'clock™ (which, by the way, I just claimed as a trademark, so you can't use it any more).
4
Just as you cannot copyright a clothing pattern, you cannot copyright a recipe. From the U.S. copyright office:
"Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds, or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection." You could conceivably copyright a print version, but not the name of the drink, methods, etc..
This explains the rich and wide variety of cocktails, and slight variations thereon.
"Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds, or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection." You could conceivably copyright a print version, but not the name of the drink, methods, etc..
This explains the rich and wide variety of cocktails, and slight variations thereon.
6
@4, you're correct on recipes not being the proper subject of Copyright. Attempting to register the name of a cocktail would also be improper, I believe, because the name acts to identify the cocktail rather than the source of a cocktail. Trademarks work as source identifiers, not to identify the product itself: Apple brand computers, Maker's Mark brand bourbon, Kleenex brand facial tissue. If Freeman wants to create a cocktail and call it the Entitled Eben, but that doesn't make "Entitled Eben" a trademark for whatever the mix is he's created.
7
@4, @6, then what you're suggesting is that someone DOES need to get sued, by this Eben creature, so he can set a precedent of getting laughed out of court.
8
As a bartender in the business of making fancy and complicated cocktails in new york city, i can say categorically that copywriting cocktail recipes is absurd. the majority of cocktails being made are usually spin-offs of classic standards, ie the manhattan or the daiquiri. many of the so called mixologists in the cocktail world aren't nearly as original as they wish to be perceived. copywriting cocktails would kill cocktail culture.
also, mixologist as a term has been abandoned. and with good cause, it's really pretentious. i'll go by bartender personally, because that's what i do.
also, mixologist as a term has been abandoned. and with good cause, it's really pretentious. i'll go by bartender personally, because that's what i do.
10
By his own logic, wouldn't Eben then owe a lifetime of back cocktail royalties?
Bartender should be the only term for this profession. Some are just better than others.
Bartender should be the only term for this profession. Some are just better than others.
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