Long Island distillery sues global giant LIV Golf

You might remember LIV Golf, a group that promotes golf as a festival of drunkenness and pays some of the leading players obscene amounts of money.

It aimed to change the face of the sport but is now largely an irrelevancy - unless you are one of the lucky golfers raking in the dollars.

Now LIV Golf has a legal issue.

A New York-based artisan distillery, Long Island Spirits, has filed a lawsuit against LIV Golf, alleging that the league depressed sales and confused customers, by selling LIV-branded products that infringed on the spirit maker’s trademark.

In a filing to the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the craft vodka producer claimed that the Saudi-backed golf league is infringing on its signature LiV brand by selling its own branded alcohol and apparel.

The LiV acronym originally stood for Long Island Vodka (see image right).

As well as its signature vodka, made from local potatoes, the distillery produces cocktails, whisky, RTDs and gin. It also sells its own branded t-shirts, hats and other clothing.

The Baiting Hollow (great name)-based distillery, accuses LIV Golf of “blatant trademark infringement”.

The complaint states: “Distributors, retailers, hospitality partners, and consumers have already experienced actual confusion about whether the LíV brand has affiliated with LIV Golf.

“Consumers’ mistaken belief that LIV is in league with a highly controversial and heavily commercialised venture backed by an immense foreign sovereign wealth fund is antithetical to the authentic, pioneering, craft spirit LíV brand that LIV has worked hard to build.”

Ouch.