Maybe Sazerac should have bought the Old Taylor Distillery.  But it didn’t.

Will Arvin and Wesley Murray did, and they set out to restore was once was called the “most magnificent plant of its kind in Kentucky.”

            Peristyle, the company they formed to buy and renovate the property and produce bourbon there, regularly referred to its location as “the Former Old Taylor Distillery” or “Old Taylor” during the renovation period.

            Sazerac, which bought the trademark rights to “Old Taylor” and “Colonel E.H. Taylor” in 2009 objected, and sued Peristyle for infringement, unfair competition, passing-off violations.

            Today, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Peristyle used the Old Taylor name descriptively and in good faith.

            Peristyle has renamed the property “Castle & Key,” and says it will market its bourbons and whiskeys under that name in the future.

            In ruling for Peristyle, the court noted that it used the Old Taylor name “to pinpoint the historic location where Peristyle planned to make a new bourbon, not to brand the bourbon.”  The opinion also noted that, when Peristyle’s bourbon comes to market in four years, it “does not plan to put ‘Old Taylor’ on the bottle.”

            It affirmed the lower court decision: “Peristyle is not attempting to trade off the goodwill of Sazerac. Instead, Peristyle is enjoying the goodwill already ingrained in the property it purchased and is advertising itself for what it is: a distillery first built by Colonel Taylor, subsequently abandoned, but once again purchased, renovated, and restored to life as Castle & Key.”

            The appeals court noted that Peristyle acted in good faith.  “One reason why Peristyle referred to the distillery by name so often was that it had yet to settle on a brand name for itself.  That process was extensive, last over a year, in part because “the reverence for [Old Taylor] is tremendous . . . and to find a name that would justify the spirit and architecture and history of this plays was a really tall order.”

            The court also slapped Sazerac for pointing out “there is a 400-foot ‘Old Taylor Distillery’ sign on the distillery’s barrel storage warehouse and a 20-foot ‘The Old Taylor Distilling Company’ sign above the entrance to the main building.”

            “Both signs adorned the building before Peristyle purchased it, confirming that the company did not put them there or otherwise use them in bad faith,” the court noted.

            Peristyle, the court said, used the signs only to identify the location of a historic site, one sufficiently historic that the National Register of Historic Places lists it, accurately and descriptively, under the name “Old Taylor Distillery.”

            “Past is prelude when it comes to Peristyle’s future. It plans to put up a Castle & Key sign next to the historic signs before the company opens the yet-to-be-finished distillery to the public. Once they do, visitors will know they are at the historic Old Taylor distiller, where Castle & Key distills its own bourbon. Trademark law demands no more,” the court’s decision said.