No other goods class has quite the legal texture of Class 33. "Champagne" isn't just a marketing word here — it's a legally reserved term, protected for sparkling wine from a specific French region, and using it (or even evoking it) for a product from anywhere else routinely draws refusal or opposition. "Cognac," "Tequila," "Scotch Whisky," "Bourbon," and "Port" carry the same kind of protection. This is the geographic-indication problem, and it's unique to alcohol among the Nice classes — no candy bar or software company has to clear their name against it.
It goes further than the famous names: a vodka called "Russian Mountain" or a wine called "Napa Reserve" can be refused as primarily geographically descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive if the geography matters to consumers and the product doesn't actually come from there. Ordinary geographic descriptiveness, not just protected designations, is a live issue in this class.
What Class 33 Covers
Nice Class 33 is alcoholic beverages, except beer: wine, sparkling wine, fortified wine, vermouth, cider, distilled spirits — whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, tequila, brandy — liqueurs, pre-mixed spirit cocktails, and bitters. The structural quirk to remember is the split with its neighbor: beer is Class 32, everything else alcoholic is Class 33. A craft distillery files here; a brewery files in 32; a combined "brewstillery" needs both. Non-alcoholic wine and spirit alternatives can go either way depending on positioning, but are often filed here to sit beside their alcoholic competitors.
Two Approval Systems, Not One
Registering the brand name is only half the job for a spirits or wine company. A USPTO trademark protects your name as intellectual property, but before you can sell anything, the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has to separately approve the actual label through a Certificate of Label Approval (COLA). The two systems don't talk to each other: TTB approval gives you no trademark rights, and a trademark registration doesn't let you skip label review. Smart founders run them in parallel — clear and file the trademark early to lock in priority, and prepare the TTB submission so the label is ready the moment the product is. Fixing a name that clears the USPTO but fails TTB labeling rules, or vice versa, late in the process costs real time and money.
Who Owns This Class
Diageo owns Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Tanqueray, Captain Morgan, and Don Julio — one of the largest Class 33 portfolios in existence. Pernod Ricard holds Absolut, Jameson, Chivas Regal, and Malibu. Bacardi has its own name and bat device plus Grey Goose and Bombay Sapphire. And Moët Hennessy's Champagne and Cognac houses intersect directly with the geographic-indication protections described above, since those house names are themselves tied to protected regions.
Pairing Class 33 With Other Classes
A distillery with a tasting room, or a winery with a tasting bar, adds Class 43 for the hospitality services on top of the Class 33 product registration. Class 35 covers retail, e-commerce, and distribution. And Class 32 becomes necessary the moment a spirits or wine company also makes beer, a malt-based hard seltzer, or non-alcoholic mixers — see our Class 32 guide for that side of the business.
Quick answers: Beer sits in Class 32 for historical reasons tied to production and distribution, so a producer of both beer and spirits needs both classes. You generally cannot use "Champagne" or "Tequila" in a brand name unless your product genuinely originates from the protected region — evoking the term for a product from elsewhere typically leads to refusal or opposition. TTB label approval and USPTO trademark registration are independent systems, and you need both before you can sell. A spirit-based ready-to-drink cocktail is Class 33, while a malt- or sugar-based RTD seltzer is usually Class 32 — companies launching across formats often file both.
Between crowded spirit categories and geographic-indication landmines, Class 33 rewards careful clearance. Use tmarkmetric to browse registered Class 33 trademarks and search the wider registry before you print a single label.