Victor Harvey, founder and CEO of Victor George Spirits, a Black-owned whiskey brand based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is involved in a legal dispute with French cognac company Rémy Martin. The conflict stems from the firms featuring the year ‘1738’ on their respective bottle labels.
According to the Miami New Times , Harvey said his company’s attorneys received a notice from E. Remy Martin & Co. in November 2023, stating the spirits brand had no legal use of the year on its Fort Mosé bourbon bottles.
“This originally came as an utter surprise,” Harvey told New Times. “I’m not an attorney, but I’ve never known you could trademark an entire year as part of a trademark. We 100 percent chose the year 1738 because of its significance to Black people in America…it was the first year in this country where Black people could live free in some regard. That’s our sole reason for using it.”
Harvey’s reasoning holds a deeper meaning for Black Americans in the South. In 1726, more than a dozen enslaved people escaped Charleston, South Carolina, and migrated to Florida, where the Spanish had already occupied most of the state, per New Times. At the time, more enslaved people had broken free and headed toward St. Augustine, leading to the first underground railroad.