Swedish Box Destilleri changes its name to High Coast Distillery
For June a rebranding is planned to avoid confusion and quarrels
High Coast Distillery Fans of Box Whisky were surprised by some news that immediately caused social media discussions: On 30 th June when the annual Box Whisky Festival will be held, the distillery will change its name officially into High Coast Distillery. The newly designed labels of the whisky bottles will present its High Coast Single Malt Whisky.
High Coast Distillery – already!
The change is due to concerns raised by independent bottler Compass Box as the Swedish company informed in a press release. People might be confused by the similarity of the brand names. Box Destilleri doesn’t want to risk a long lasting legal dispute it seems. The term “High Coast” has already been used on the label, the homepage and to promote the single malt, so the name is not really totally new and surprising. And it is a big chance to link the distillery more tied to the High Coast region (“Höga Kusten” in Swedish) said Thomas Larsson, CEO of Box Destilleri. The High Coast is listed as world heritage and is an important part of Sweden’s tourism. This might mean new marketing possibilities for Box Whisky.
Compass Box and Box Whisky
The Compass Box Company was founded in 2000 by John Glaser and had made a name for itself in the last years by making transparency in the whisky business a matter of big public interest. Now they knock on the door of a distillery that lives that idea of transparency and realizes it with its bottlings. When Box Destilleri opened in 2010 it probably didn’t intend to use Compass Box’ brand awareness for their own business – Compass Box hadn’t started its Transparency Campaign to that time and was not really very famous on the market. But of course a similarity of names can’t be denied and so Box Destilleri choses to avoid a conflict. Better High Coast than high cost….
