Hand Grenade (cocktail) - Trademarks and Secrecy

Trademarks and Secrecy

721 Bourborn, Inc., doing business as Tropical Isle®, holds five federal trademark registrations for its Hand Grenade® family of marks, including "Home of the Hand Grenade" for bar services and other registrations protecting its prepared alcoholic cocktails, nonalcoholic mixes and syrups, as well as energy drinks. Only five establishments, all in the French Quarter, are licensed to sell Hand Grenade® cocktails. They include Tropical Isle Original, Tropical Isle Original Papa Joe’s, Tropical Isle Bayou Club & Music Bar, the Funky Pirate, and the New Orleans Grapevine.

Tropical Isle's recipe is a proprietary trade secret that only a handful of people know, and the employees and licensees are required to sign confidentiality agreements pledging not to reveal it. Tropical Isle believes that the secrecy increases the drink's mystique. That has resulted in large-scale speculation over the ingredients, and several variations of possible drink recipes on the Internet. That has led Tropical Isle to declare on its Website that any drink or recipe claiming to be a Hand Grenade® is fake and illegal. They also state that they are pursing legal recourse against such impostors, and they offer a $250 cash reward "to anyone furnishing information that leads to the identification and termination of the illegal use of our federally registered trademark".

Tropical Isle has taken legal action, or threatened to do so, against several businesses for selling drinks under the name Hand Grenade or Grenade (e.g., DeRe' LaRouge in Hattiesburg, MS) and for marketing similar looking and tasting products (e.g., Turtle Bay's "The Turtle" cocktail)