BREWDOG has been accused of creating a “knock off” version of a Scottish firm’s award-winning bottle design for their new tequila.
Lind and Lime Gin co-founder Ian Stirling claimed that BrewDog’s new “Casa Rayos” tequila uses a bottle which was inspired by his own firm’s design.
BrewDog has just launched its new tequila offering, a collaboration with the Orendain family, who are said to be the third-oldest Tequila-making family in the Mexican town of Tequila.
The firm insisted its bottle is “obviously different” from the Lind and Lime design, which won the prestigious Dieline Best In Show design award in 2019.
Anyone else think this new @BrewDog tequila bottle looks A LOT like @LindAndLime gin? pic.twitter.com/DYVZlL4B51
— Blair Bowman 🥃 (@mrblairbowman) February 12, 2024
Lind and Lime Gin is produced by the Leith-based Muckle Brig, which Stirling co-founded with long-time friend Paddy Fletcher.
Stirling told The National: “Initially I thought it was another sort of international knock off. We've had a few others. There was one in Thailand, there was one in Australia. I thought, ‘now someone in Mexico has done this with a tequila’.
“Then I began to search and – it was almost a fall-off-my-chair moment – I just went: ‘Oh, my God, it's BrewDog’. I just couldn't believe it."
Stirling said that Lind and Lime was the “heart and soul” of his company, and its success had helped to fund the opening of their Port of Leith whisky distillery.
He said the gin bottle design had been a “very long project and a real labour of love”.
Stirling said: “I'd come to the spirits industry from the wine industry and I'd always had this idea that we'd put spirits in a wine bottle.
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“Then over time, we thought, well, if we made our own bottle, we could add some lines to it and we can get it made in this beautiful off-white colour. It was a really, really long process.
“We made the first batch of bottles and then the reaction just blew us away. It kind of went crazy from there and now we're exporting to 24 different countries around the world and it's become quite an iconic London dry gin, I think.”
Asked if they might consider legal action, Stirling said there was a power dynamic at play with the much larger BrewDog firm.
He said: “This is all pretty fresh for us and I think we're just coming to terms with it. We'll be looking at our options in due course. Certainly, for a company like ours, it's not an attractive option because this is where the power dynamic really comes into play."
A spokesperson for BrewDog refuted claims their bottle design was a “copycat” of the Lind and Lime bottle.
They said: “The Casa Rayos bottle design is based on the colour and aesthetic form of the Blue Weber agave plant from which our tequila [is] made.
“The painted (as opposed to clear) glass colour, bottle shape and contour, glass text, label size and placement, fonts and colours, and embossed design are all obviously different. The bottle also has a real cork stopper and silver ring. And Casa Rayos is a super premium tequila, not a gin.
“There has been no attempt whatsoever to replicate anything and we wish Muckle Brig every success with their gin.”
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BrewDog is further facing accusations over the Casa Rayos name of its new tequila, with the El Rayo tequila brand raising concerns. Rayo is Spanish for lightning.
El Rayo co-founder Jack Vereker said: “Creating an independent spirit is hard enough. It's taken us years to build up the El Rayo brand name and distribution.
“There is no way a retailer is going to list a product in the same category, at the same price point with nearly the same name and I'm seriously concerned about the effect this is going to have on our business.”
A BrewDog spokesperson added: “The lightning bolt or 'rayos' is integral to the origin story of tequila. It a shared story that doesn’t belong to one distillery or brand.
"Casa Rayos tequila celebrates the lightning bolt that started it all and also pays homage to the 25,000 hours of the sun’s rays that have gone into growing the agave plants which our tequila is made from.”
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