The Bourbon Daily Show #3,619 – Dowling vs. Dowling

0:00Today's show is sponsored by the ABV Barrel Shop. The ABV Barrel Shop is located in the St. Louis Metro community of Arnold, Missouri. The ABV Barrel Shop is focused on one thing, single barrels. Best of all, you can try before you buy. Head over to ABV Barrel Shop.com to sign up for their email and text distribution so you know what they have in stock, what classes are coming up, and who from the industry may be coming into visit. The ABV Barrel Shop. It's where single barrels live. We are also sponsored by the Bar-to-Go. The Bar-to-Go offers traveling mini-bars that are no bigger than a small purse or toilet treat bag. Best of all, they are fully customizable so you can create the perfect piece that is unique for you. If you own your own business, what a fun and unique way to promote what you do. Check them out online at thebar-to-go.com that is the number two in the Bar-to-Go. If you have wholesale questions, call my friend Isabel Clark at 504-481-1297. Finally, we are sponsored by the Neely Family Distillery. An FD is a family-owned business that keeps ringing up awards in the spirits world.

1:02Head to Sparta, Kentucky to experience the family history, award-winning spirits, and meet the Neely Family. Check them out online at neelyfamilydistillery.com. Now, onto the show. Welcome to the Urban Daily.

2:46We have a show talking about a lawsuit. We have Katie on. This will be fun. Maybe a little trademark stuff. What's going on? Is this the end of the line? Or could this be brought back to the forefront? We'll talk about that. But before we get to that, Katie said there is something she wanted to talk about. What is that, Katie? Yes. I've been thinking about this in a long time. I've been thinking about this for a whole 45 seconds. I would like to know, are there any traditional actions you consider when someone's drunk? Something they're doing that's a behavior that you actually find endearing. You find cut-of-cuter entertaining, etc. from drunk people. Oh, yes. Okay. There you go. When the better half, when the general gets going, she gets a little red face, and she starts dancing like she's in a club. So you start moving. She does this whole little thing. She's got this whole little move thing. She's going and I'm like, oh, yeah, it's time to turn this one in quick before this gets

3:49out of hand very quickly. Oh, that's incredible. Meaning, I'm going to drag her ass in. There's no way. She's at that point where she's like, we're going clubbing. I'm like, we haven't gone clubbing in 30 years, honey. Right. No, we're going dancing. That's it. She's got this little move she does. And I'm like, that's the indicator. That's it. It's the indicator to put that one to bet. Yeah. Yeah. That's cute. Yeah. Let me do. I love it. It says similar. So like the person I've been dating, Ben what's when he does more when he's drunk and like, okay, which is where let me let me take you to bet. Let go. Go home. Go to the bet. I was like to wait for the screen. Did you do sign language? No. I'm like, how does help bet? What wherever we're at, bet, bet, bet, go to bet. Like, yeah, I don't know. There's something about putting someone to bet and being like the caretaker. We're going up the hat. Wow. Oh, yeah. I've never seen, I've never seen anybody like Macnew that gets caretakers and Katie's

4:51one of them by the way. Yes. Yeah. She's an enabler. I mean, caretaker. Yeah. Macnews. Brenner, drunk, all-added, pam-hoi-l, they all come running over to take care of Macnew and I'm like, she just needs to go to a bed. I mean, she's clearly annihilated. Let's help her get to her bed and let's entertain her fun, but they're like fanning her and getting her water and all that. Put your feet up, the sagging her. Put her in a bed. But now, like, when I get to be the person that's like, baby, you need to go to bed. Like, I feel like I want for the night. Like, I'm not the disaster for the night. Like, you know. No, you want. That is true. But you too bad. That's a win for me. That's a win. That's a win for Macnew. So, now, that's where I fall. Macnew would be the one that you know when she's drunk when she has to have handlers. I'm not one of them because I'm like, yeah. I need them often. It's good or the safety. Let's get her to safety.

5:52It's my point. Please, somebody, please put me in bed. I do need that. Yeah, especially when you see the trolls starting to close in. Right. Exactly. They start coming and see. You and I have had that same indicator at one point in time. We linked eyes at one time and I think we both engaged. We have to save Macnew, so yeah. Yeah, no, please put me in bed. But like, when I'm the person that has put my person in bed, I'm like, that's a sad state of affairs. I'm going on today. You get pissed about that. You're like, wait a minute. How did you have such a good time and I didn't? Right. It should be the other way around. It's like you lost for the day. No, I didn't have the bad time. I still had a great time. But I'm like, I get to take care of you and you get to the best. I can't imagine Macnew being a caretaker. So no, no, that would be amazing. You're a big character. I get to take care of people. I do. No, you sleep in and that was close on. Shoes on.

6:53Yeah. Then you put makeup all over them. You wake up in the morning with like a dick drawn under space or something like that. Taking pictures, posting them to the internet. Yeah. Yeah. I take care of someone. I take care of myself. But I, that's the way. That's the point. Of course. Of course. Yes. KVU asked a question. What is for you? Yeah. So well, I really like when people get chatty. And so when, especially because I like going on like deep dive conversations of finding things that people are passionate about or find interesting and learning new things anyway. So I like it when someone is still coherent enough to like have a conversation and keep a single train of thought here. But when they get into like this random topic that you find that they're interested about that normally their filters would be like, Hey, no one really wants to know about like this one weird, weird hobby I have or something. But you can just get them just to open up and talk about it. And then like just end up in this total side tangent that you never would have expected

7:54or had otherwise or even just like something you observe. And you both then start talking about like the same thing and having this whole conversation and that normally you would never have. So that's one of my favorite things when people are drinking a little bit that I find really endearing of just a random topic, even if it's like talking about the new color they bought for their dog and why they got it. And so like it could be the most random thing that's just I find it like cute and endearing that someone has their filters dropped and they're happy to just talk about the things that interest them or that they've done. I witnessed this moment at Bardstom Brimble who's the last year was you, me, the general, the Linda and Matt were there and John was there we were talking about blood pressure and everything like that and Matt starts dropping about all this droid porn he's watching on YouTube or like, okay, well that's enough Matt. All right, it's time for you to go to bed. Wow. And it was like, whoa, what are you talking about? You know, Matt, Matt, settle down here. You know, it's like holy cow, this droid porn, this whole website he's talking about me and he's like, yeah, he's all in the droid. No, no, I'm kidding.

8:55Yeah. There was a very enlightening conversation about high blood pressure and I saw getting old. Yes. But yes. That's a good thing that you had a random conversation about high blood pressure and it was being a good conversation with a group of people. Like, but I remember it was a pleasant conversation. We actually took away tips with everybody like, yes, we're going to try this one. Taking notes. Sure. Yeah, and normally you would sit down like to dinner with people and be like, hey, let's talk about high blood pressure. So like drunk, that's what you do. I'm not talking about. But God, we're old. Right. That is definitely an old person. I've had one other one I had recently was I've started talking and realized like most of the people in the group had sleep apnea and UC Pat machines and they were talking about like which attachments they use and like, what's the best? The butt plug one. Is it? The butt plug one, yes. The one that makes the air tight. Yes. Yeah. Do any of you have friends that they have very distinct phases of drunkness? Because I got my buddy Darren and not Darren that works at the store, but my buddy I hung

9:58out with my whole life. He goes from, he starts, he's usually pretty quiet, you know, very kind of conservative guy doesn't say a lot, but then he drinks. He really starts having fun and that's awesome. We start laughing and he's a life of a party type of guy. Then he gets combative. He starts fighting you and stuff like that. And then he's casting you out and wanting to get into fights. And then it goes to the final one is him crying and apologizing and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to any of this. I'm just sorry. Did he hurt and sufferable to be around? Right. Yeah, you don't want to be apologizing to 100 times. Yeah, I'm sorry. Listen, I didn't mean that. I said I'm sorry. I said, okay, I heard that. You're good. We're good. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah, no. I don't know. How old are you? You don't have a station? I don't know what to see. That like 30. Well, he's my age now. I mean, he's 58 to 59. I guess he's 59. You know, he needs to get us together. But, um,

10:59I mean, I knew a thing now. You've got a problem. Right. Imagine the dupe and your face. There's an unsettled childhood memories that need to be fixed with that gentleman. Yeah. He was 20, something sure, whatever. You're eight. Um, no, no. He can't get away with that. Okay. Get it off the head. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. He'll call out the faces though. You know when it's coming? You're no right. Yeah. And you're like, all right, who's going to pick the fight now? Because we're just going to stand here and he's just going to find something to pick a fight on it. It's like, Yeah. I would say I do with most of my friends, I know the level of like when they're like at their max, and like their max of like not just passed out, but like the little characteristics, those are the fun to catch on to. So like John turns into a like a panda bear. Like he gets quiet and he's just like kind of like the way that like a panda will like sit in like fall, but roll and back up and like they're okay with it.

12:00Yes. Oh, I do. It's just a little bit. We witnessed that too at Nileys when he was very quiet for the poor from the, uh, what was it? Was it an old forster? What was that? No, it was a heaven hill, wasn't it? It was, uh, the old fits, the old fits. The old fits. 21. He got very quiet and very panda like with these like, oh yeah. He's like, he's all around the Glen Karen. Yes. We fill on that and because you didn't want to show it because it was, I was like half full and he just wanted. Yeah. Yeah. That is panda bear John. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. So there you go. On that note. Yeah. I came to drink. What is everyone drinking? Let's start. Let's start with that. Katie, what do you got? I have remus. Uh, I don't know what one. Nine year, 107 proof. Okay. Something very good. Very good. Remus, very good is what I have today. Okay. No. Okay. That was very interesting.

13:00That was interesting because, so I didn't think I was holding it way up top here. If I was holding that further down, I think that would have been pretty fantastic. I really choked it on that. Okay. That was the experimental by the way that she had. So that was the remus she had. So I need to break these things on it that I remember. Yeah. Tim, you're next. What do you got? Uh, so, uh, uh, remus, Ross and Squib was named a flagship whiskey All-Star. So there'll be on the October event. The Ian will be on the October event for that one for full disclosure. I've got a last show, poor of my favorite deer hammer. However, this is the Veno Verso Progeny series. We are very well loved. Oh, yeah. We have left. And I know I think I have one bottle left of this one if I'm lucky. Okay. No. No. No. Didn't expect anything. Katie, second one was better than your first one there. She tried to help me out. I was trying to time it to give him a pop because I knew there wasn't going to be anything there. Right. It was nothing there. But I was late to the game.

14:01All right. McDo, what do you got? Anything. I have a star like it. Oh, nothing there. Nothing there. I've got Leopold Brothers 10-year bourbon finished in a three chamber ride barrel. Oh boy. Oh, yeah. Oh, where it is. You think this is going to lean to the point textbook. That was fantastic. Well, cheers to me, then. Cheers. All right. Well, we'll take a quick break. And then when we come back, we're going to be talking about Dallying versus Dallying. We'll do that in just a few. Okay. Let's talk about the people that make these shows happen. First up is the Staventhief Society. The other in-person class at Moonshine University in Louisville, Kentucky, the Staventhief Society's

15:05The Place Where You, a bourbon enthusiast, can expand your knowledge and emerge in an executive bourbon steward. In 2017, I completed my executive bourbon steward certification. It's the most comprehensive bourbon certification available and connects you with an expansive network of bourbon enthusiast and professionals. Check out the full listing of in-person and online certifications and join the society today by enrolling at staventhief.com. Speaking of executive bourbon steward certification, the ABV Barrel Shop at St. Louis, Missouri, has developed a unique partnership with the Staventhief Society to offer a preparatory class to assist you in getting your executive bourbon steward certification. This prep class costs only $25 and is available to take live or online via Zoom. Graduates of our class receive a coupon code good for 15% off your executive bourbon steward certification held in Louisville, Kentucky. This saves you almost $90. Additionally, you can collaborate with fellow attendees to split travel costs when you go to Louisville. If you're interested in signing up for the class, simply head over to ABVBARLSHOP.com and

16:06check out the classes and events page. Last but not least, we are sponsored by Neely Family Distillery. Royce Neely is the 11th generation distiller in one of America's oldest distilling families. A visit to Neely Family Distillery takes you through family history where you can see all the artifacts and newspaper clippings through the years from this family that started distilling in America after James Neely arrived from Northern Ireland in 1740. Today, Royce Neely and his team are crafting some of the best spirits in America. Their bourbon and absent offerings keep winning top honors in the spirit's competitions. Recently, their absent made history as the first platinum winner in the absent category at the San Francisco spirit's competition. Neely Family Distillery is definitely a bucket list destination if you are a bourbon fan. Learn more about their spirit offerings, visiting their facility, and the awards they have collected over at NeelyFamilyDestillery.com. And now, back to the show.

17:23And you're listening to the bourbon daily. Welcome back to the bourbon daily. Today we're talking about darling versus darling. Yes, we are. So we have an article from Yahoo Finance that talks about a trademark lawsuit that was initiated by Rabbit Hole. And they have a product called Mary Darling Whiskey, named after the one that was famous during mission times. She went down to Mexico and was making bourbon down there, something that was legal in Mexico and even legal to call it bourbon. That was not a problem. But I guess where she kind of crosses the line is a lot of that makes it back into the US during Crow Vision time. So she was making it for the US market. But she's great history there. I mean, she's one of the one of the great names from the the history of bourbon. Then you have a father's son duo named Steven Nick Darling. They opened up a distillery in Texas. I think if I remember correctly. Texas called Darling Distilling. And Rabbit Hole starts a lawsuit against them saying that's

18:24going to cause brand confusion. And so they file a lawsuit. But then they dropped the lawsuit, which I thought was weird. It seems like if you're going to do this, you go through with it, right? I would assume it's all steam ahead right now for Darling Distilling. I mean, they dropped their lawsuit for whatever reason. And again, it doesn't say in the article. So what do you guys think about this? One number one should, should, should Rabbit Hole have a concern? And number two, why do we think they dropped the lawsuit? I mean, they could have changed the name. I'm not mad at them for doing it. Like, obviously they should bring it back. They should give for the Eastern Gen. But like, you couldn't name something else. Uh-huh. Darling or Rabbit Hole could have named something else. Yeah, both, honestly. Okay. You could have called it Rabbit Hole Mary. You could have

19:25called it Mary's Plent. Mary's Hole Mary's Rabbit Hole is really what they're going for there. Mary's Rabbit Hole. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Uh-huh. Yeah. And now that if they listen to this, they, you know, they can technically use that now because you just do it out there. You throw it out there. Don't go ahead and do it. I'm not mad about it. But like- What's your Venmo, McNeil? Yeah, she got back. You can't do Venmo. You kicked off Venmo, that's right. She got Ven. She got back. Yes. And cash app. Yes, do cash. Yes. That's right. I do. I did pull up the lawsuit. That was filed on my pay store account. Because I still have my federal courts account. I don't log it. And as long as I don't use it too much in like a month of like, billing over like $50, they end up not billing you at all because it's not worth their time. So I can look up like three court cases of billing period. So this is one of my-

20:25Okay, one of the three. All right. So- Okay. So they did file it in June. Okay. And then they, the service looks like was complete July. And then they dismissed it August. So and it was before the downing company even had to file a response. So no response was filed. Okay. He's entered that I could see. And so first I did pull up the complaint. We can get it a little bit more into that. I thought maybe I'd find like something or I was like, oh, well, the wonder this is really weak or something. But it looks like a pretty standard account that people go forward on. Right. And so obviously, so they talk about the married downing brand about how it's based on the historical figure. All of the advertising did about like the mother of bourbon, all their use of married downing as the name on their website everywhere else with the whiskey. And then how the downing distilling corporation then was later formed in 2023 because they started

21:31the married downing in- Oh gosh. They trademarked it years before they really started using it, though. So so they had the idea to use it and they weren't actively using it until actually a couple of years ago. I don't think- And so because married downing was inducted into the Kentucky bourbon hall of fame until 2025, which and so I don't know if that's part of the issue in that it wasn't until after the downing company from Texas was already formed that they like really went forward with all the promotion of their married downing name. And so they have the filing. And one thing I'd like to inject to the the downing distilling is not in any way trying to utilize married downing associated with it. It's a family name. So I don't multiple labels that they put and they did circles in the complaint here of and it also has downing distilling downing distilling or just downing. None of it says married downing it. None of it

22:32has a picture of a woman even. It doesn't have is not suggesting that's related to one character. The only other thing they did say is that they advertised downing reformative marks by reference to prohibition and that the downing distilling had connection with varieties of moonshine and advertised it's speak easy event on certain nights. So they are not only the name but they're saying it was trying to go like the same era but at the same time there's so much in whiskey that goes to that kind of era. Everything has a speak easy. Neil even has a speak easy at their place. They all it's all kind of a thing that they do right. And then they did mention that downing Texas downing had prior knowledge of plaintiffs' rights and that's use of downing formative marks is likely to cause consumer confusion. It says because for a number of years it included a disclaimer in the fine print at the bottom of its website noting that it was not affiliated with downing bros or married downing. Okay.

23:33And so I found that to be interesting that they put that in there. They were not the same. Yeah. So their count one was federal trademark infringement. It was all very standard in that count. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. And then count two was federal unfair competition of false designation of origin. It was a lot of then repeated. I thought maybe something exciting would come out of there. Nothing stood out to me. And then a lot like common law unfair competition under Texas law, common law misappropriation, et cetera. I didn't see anything else that really stood out other than, hey, this is the same word. Really? That's made sense why it's to miss even before they even had a respond. Maybe they just saw it and it's like, hey, listen, you're arguing over a word. And so it could, but had the same time I feel like if you did the expense to file the case to get something, get it filed, get all your paperwork together,

24:35get them served. You've already invested significant amount of money in this. Why not at least just go forward with a little bit? So I think there has to have been some kind of settlement. So there had to be some kind of agreement or settlement. My guess would be that maybe the Texas downing company agreed to pay them like a percentage of profits off certain labels. So that's like, hey, if we become more successful, you become more successful. I don't see how like a one-time payment on this would result in such a quick dismissal. Right. That's just my gut reaction. Yes, because it is so quick. On one, I'm like, okay, whoever the Texas downing company has is their attorney. Everyone should go hire them. The fact that they reached an agreement and got a dismissal this quickly, like go hire that attorney. Yeah, we don't know who it is. They're not to file anything in the case at all. I'm impressed. That's pretty good. That's conference calls, phone calls with opposing counsel and plaintiff. So it was impressive. And of course, almost all court cases settle anyway, but not that quick. I had even as an attorney had helped negotiate

25:40settlements related to some alcohol uses for certain clients. And it took a lot longer. Just getting attorneys to email back and forth, getting that done in a month is incredible on its own. So maybe it was that they were incredibly motivated. They didn't actually want to go forward with the suit. They had some other motive that seems unlikely. So I find that incredibly fascinating and dismissed with prejudice. So they cannot refile it either against it. It's not like they just were going to refile something a little bit later. Really incredible in the eyes of the law that anything was done that quickly. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. That's interesting. They get something of you were served it within a month. The entire case is dismissed. That they agreed to dismiss it with prejudice that you had either something that big. They were like, you're going to lose so big you better dismiss this now or that you reached a settlement with them immediately within less than four weeks. Nothing like every time there's a continuous

26:41in court it's at least four weeks. And so like that we go a month at a time for everything. So fact that anything was done, color me impressed. Impressive. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought for sure they had something there. There has to be something that was settled to your point, Katie. Or it's just it was that frivolous. I just tried to go through a trademark for one of my brand names that I work under too. And it was a broad one. And I got rejected, which makes sense, but I'm going to try to register it because it is something unique. But I went through that whole entire process trying to trademark. And it's not easy to get the trademark right off the bat. I found that very interesting and not easy. However, yeah, this was quick. But at the end of the day, who's bought, did anybody know about the Mary Dowling whiskey? And I had heard about it. I've never even tried it. I've never seen on a shelf. Right. Not that not that our market is maybe a rabbit hole hotbed because I don't see a lot of rabbit hole up the shelves. But good for them for trying to do what they need to do and good for a Dowling. You know, I actually want to call them out and see how I can get them on the flagship whiskey. And maybe we asked the question. Could be interesting.

27:41Yeah. How did you figure this out? How do you get out of it so quick? So yeah, interesting. Could you just be a matter of communication, like you said? That sounds like the idea that maybe they're returning respondible. Like here's an exact case that was already decided that was so similar that you can look and that fact to fact, similar to our case, they were denied. It's going to cost us $2,500 in attorneys who reply to give a response and emotion to dismiss. We'll give it to you if you just dismiss it on your own. Like, something like that would be so baller. Like, I want to imagine that it was like that bad ass. Like a single phone call with a single email being like, here's your case law site. Here's the final offer except it within 14 days. Like, boom, that's what I want to have. Let me see what the case they would say that was similar to that. That would be something. What was another one to be bumped into over there? Right. That's a situation. But that sounds. These things tend to be more basic and more surprising. Like, it was that end of being like maybe that not that easy,

28:43but that simple. And I think it's not being an alcohol case. It would be something like a popcorn bread or some food brand, something like that. Someone had one based on historical figure. Someone made an own brand later that had their family name. The court was like, it's a family name. We don't care if it was historical figure name as well. Dismissed. And so they'd be like, here's the exact same fact pattern, but in a different industry, here's your choices. We'll pay you the cost of what's going to pay us to file the motion to dismiss and you just dismiss it. Like, Red and Baccher syrup versus. I remember one similar. It was Dick versus Casino. Tim, we'll just spit. Like, all over. I was trying to joke. Why does he the cheeks puff up? Oh my god. We all know there's a famous podcast. I think it's a bumper that you made Steve where I end up saying, Burma did where you just absolutely choked on your whiskey, went up your nose and everything like that. I did not want you

29:49to burp and daily. That was happening. That was that was quite possibly happening. I just thought this was a curious one and Katie provided, you know, probably what happened. I mean, I think I don't think that they lost interest in the lawsuit. They had spent all that money to get to that point. So it's not like they'd be like, you know what, my mother. Yeah, never mind. JK friend JK. So, so yeah, something had to be settled. So that's how that stuff works. So, but it's interesting. So on that note, we're going to wrap this one up as we always do by talking about where people can find us. Katie, we'll start with you working people, find you. You can find me researching any federal law to see. Only one to three times per month. Yeah, but only one to three times per month. And then also for an Instagram at Katie proof. All right, Tim. I'm an easy guy to find across all socials. That's why I got 2112. No, I'm not. I didn't spy guy, 2012, but Instagram, YouTube, our flagship whiskey and rush creeps stilling.com. All right, McNeal. I'm on Instagram at McNeal, ABV.

30:52All right, for me, I'm an easy guy to find. I had Steve A.K. the cross all social media, abvnetwork.com. That's where we put our shows, abvbattleshop.com. That's what's going on at the shop. And last but not least, bourbon sasquatch on YouTube. McNeal, anything else to say before we get on here? I'd like to amend the audience to please give us a five star review that includes comments. It helps me people upon the show, which is very important to us. And if you like what we're doing, we ask you please give us a five star review on patreon at patreon.com. So I have to be a baby network. Excellent job. We will have a brand new show for you tomorrow. Oh, I'm so excited. Until then, take care, everybody. See ya. See you, everyone. Yeah. Yeah. So why was that a struggle? Before we let you go, let's talk about one last thing. The abvbattleshop and the St. Louis community of Arnold, Missouri. The abvbattleshop is focused

31:55on a couple of things. First of all, single barrels. We are the place where single barrels live. We go to distilleries, taste through the whiskey, select the best barrel, and have a ship to our store. We'll present it to you, our customers, by allowing you to try before you buy. We're also known for the classes that we have in our education center in the store, as well as the events we have with industry professionals from the bourbon business. If you are in the St. Louis area, please come by and visit us at six Fox Valley Center in Arnold, Missouri, or at a minimum. At least sign up for our email and text distribution so you know exactly what's going on in our shop over at abvbattleshop.com. This is Steve Ackley, owner of the abv network signing off. We thank you for listening to our programming and truly appreciate your support. The bourbon daily is part of the abv network. For more information or to become a sponsor, please visit abvnetwork.com. Thanks for listening and cheers. This has been a Steve Ackley production.