Egg liqueur lobby wants “liqueur without egg” to ban

No, no, it is not an April joke, emphasizes Ole Wittmann on the phone. The egg liqueur lawsuit is unfortunately real, “as absurd as it sounds”. The 47-year-old heads the small Hamburg spirits start-up Learlich, which was previously known for rum. The label, named after the legendary tattoo artist and innkeeper on St. Pauli, Christian Warlich, has won various scenery prices in recent years, including at the World Rum Awards in London.

But now Wittmann has legal trouble with the topic of egg liqueur. Although everything is fine with the “sort of egg liqueur”. However, there are problems with the vegan alternative “Learlich liqueur without egg”, which his company launched two years ago. Because while the animal welfare organization PETA chose the product in 2024 for the “best vegan liqueur”, the egg liqueur industry would like to ban it.

The “Protection Association of the Spirit Industry” has filed a lawsuit against Lake because it sees the protected term egg liqueur violated. According to the will of the lobbying organization, the liqueur should disappear from the market without egg. “The association claims that our product name and the rooster on the label would be an illegal allusion to the protected term ‘egg liqueur’,” says Wittmann. “But if you make a liqueur without egg – why shouldn’t you call it that?”

Yes, why not? The spirits association refers to food law, more precisely to the EU’s spirits regulation, which, among other things, regulates that an egg liqueur must contain eggs. “There are no vegan egg liqueur,” says Christofer Eggers, lawyer of the protection association, at the request of the star. “Any reference to the protected name is prohibited – regardless of whether there is a misleading consumer or not.” And in the opinion of the spirits association, this reference is also available if one explicitly writes “without egg” on the label, because the association is aroused.

The association does not matter that Wittmann does not refer to his liqueur as an egg liqueur. It is not enough for him to do without advertising like “tastes of egg liqueur” after a first request for an injunction. It is still being sued. The ruthlessness of the association is likely to have to do with their list of members, in which large spirits manufacturers frolic. The first chairman is William Verpoorten, head of the egg liqueur giant from Bonn of the same name, who is presumably little interested in the fact that vegan alternatives are established on the market.

The legal path has so far proven to be very effective for Verpoortens Association. The protection association already achieved in 2023 that the company Grote & Co. Spirits took its vegan “Eyy Likör” off the market again. And last year the association was also successful with a lawsuit against the start-up veggog. The Hamburg Regional Court prohibited Veggly to market itself as a “vegan alternative to egg liqueur” and prohibited the use of the term egg liqueur in all variants. Indirect allusions and the combination with terms such as alternative or vegan also violate the designation protection, the court ruled (Az. 406 HKO 76/23). The association is convinced that the court is also collected by the court “liqueur without egg”, says lawyer Eggers.

SAULLICH-MACHER WITTMANN now wants to let it up and have it clear whether the letters of the law really make common sense. “You shouldn’t sell people for stupid. I am sure that they understand the difference,” says Wittmann. So he doesn’t want to give up without a fight.

Because he lacks the financial resources as a one-man company in order to put out the potentially expensive lawsuit, he has put on a crowdfunding campaign. So he wants to collect 39,000 euros for covering process costs. “If I win to court and the other side has to bear the process costs, I donate everything to the German Animal Welfare Association after deducting the costs,” promises Wittmann.

Until judicial clarification, Wittmann does not sell the egg -free product for the time being so as not to risk a recall. However, he is confident that he can bring the bottles – including the rooster on the label. As with all of his labels, the motif is a tribute to the late tattoo pioneer Warlich, says Wittmann. “And everyone knows that a rooster does not lay eggs.”