Sazerac Pours Justice: Fake Weller Bourbon Seller Slammed with $30,000 Fine
Sazerac, the parent company of Buffalo Trace, successfully secured a $30,000 damage award against a firm that sold forged whiskey purporting to be its W L Weller brand.
Sazerac’s W L Weller Bourbon has been on the market for four decades, forming an integral part of the Buffalo Trace Antique collection.
Allocated Liquor, a distribution company that conducts its business over the internet, resells various alcoholic brands.
After noticing Allocated Liquor selling its Weller line on November 18, 2022, Sazerac took legal action. They accused Allocated Liquor of trade infringement, counterfeiting, false origin labeling, and unfair competition. Allocated Liquor received a cease-and-desist letter from Sazerac, to which the owner of Allocated replied stating they had purchased the Bourbons from an Etsy seller.
Allocated wasn’t approved to vend Sazerac’s Weller Bourbon brand. However, last year, they were found vending miniature bottle gift sets of the brand, an item never produced or sold by Sazerac.
Sazerac claimed that the miniatures Allocated sold were near perfect replicas of their genuine Weller branded products, featuring ‘exact copies of the Weller marks.’
They further provided proof of customer confusion caused by Allocated’s counterfeit products. This was shown by a customer contacting Sazerac with an intent to buy ‘additional Weller miniature bottles.’
Allocated confessed to selling at least 10 counterfeit Weller-branded Bourbon gift sets for $299.99 each. They managed to sell at least seven of these sets, yielding ‘at least’ $2,099.93 from these counterfeit sales.
It was argued that Etsy isn’t a legal distributor of alcoholic beverages, and it bans the sale of alcohol on its platform. Therefore, Allocated ‘must have known its illicit purchase of alcohol from Etsy couldn’t have come from an authorized Weller-branded Bourbons seller,’ as the lawsuit contended.
Furthermore, Allocated was discovered to be vending Weller-branded Bourbons at a ‘premium price.’ This indicates Allocated knew the worth of the Weller brand and purposely peddled the fake products to attain a similar premium profit, as heard by Judge Otis D Wright II.
After the cease-and-desist directive, Allocated promptly removed all Weller items from its website and ceased the sale of other Sazerac products.
Sazerac aimed for statutory damages ranging from $20,000 to $100,000 per counterfeit mark, summing to a total between $40,000 and $200,000. This was to recoup Sazerac’s ‘lost profits, penalize Allocated’s deliberate infringing behavior, and deter future infringing activity.’
