At Exit 6 Brewery, a little brewpub north of St. Louis, you can order a creamy vanilla stout that tastes like a Frappuccino. Just don’t call it that, because you might wind up paying Starbucks a hefty $6.
That’s what happened to Exit 6 owner Jeff Britton when Starbucks heard the brewery was serving Frappicino [sic] beers. After getting Starbucks’ cease and desist, Britton not only changed the drink’s name to The F Word but mailed Starbucks’ lawyers a $6 check and a sneakily hilarious letter:
We never thought that our beer drinking customers would have thought that the alcoholic beverage coming out of the tap would have actually been coffee from one of the many, many, many stores located a few blocks away…So that was our mistake…We also promise to stop production of our “Starbuck-McDonalds-Coca Cola-Marlboro Honey Lager” for fear of further repercussions…
Please find enclosed a check for the full amount of profit gained from the sale of those 3 [Frappicino] beers…We just want to help a business like Starbucks. Us small business owners need to stick together.
That’s maybe the best response to a cease-and-desist EVER. Now excuse us — we’ve got a road trip to St. Louis to get started.
