CH Distillery's 'Oxycontin' Cocktail Is No More

By Anthony Todd in Food on Oct 14, 2013 6:20PM

The Cease and Desist Cocktail (nee: Oxycontin)

At CH Distillery, the new bar and distillery on West Randolph Street, all of the cocktails are made with ingredients distilled on-site. Everything is craft, small batch, handmade, and, well, seriously delicious. We've experienced something of a personal vodka rennaissance there and we are committed vodka haters. All of that deliciousness, however, was not enough to prevent a large pharmaceutical company from threatening a lawsuit.

CH Distillery used to boast a cocktail called the Oxycontin, named after the addictive painkiller. It included lapsang-souchong tea infused gin, ginger syrup, honey and lemon, and was their attempt to bring the some of the flavors of scotch (which they don't distill on site) to a cocktail menu dominated by vodka and gin drinks.

As soon as the folks at Purdue Pharma, the makers of Oxycontin, got wind of the name, the fun was destined to stop. They fired off a demand that the bar stop infringing on their trademark. Whoops!

The bar responded in the best possible way—with full compliance and good humor.

According to a press release: "Effective immediately, fans of CH Distillery's Cocktail-Formerly-Named-For-A-Popular-Prescription-Painkiller-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named will need to order it by its new name."

The new name? The "Cease and Desist."