Southern-style restaurant Maxie’s Southern Comfort is now known simply as Maxie’s after the company behind the Southern Comfort liqueur threatened to sue the Milwaukee eatery over the name evoking a husky-voiced debutante, according to a press release.
“We have been forced to make this slight change due to threats of litigation by Southern Comfort Liquor Company; however, everything, everything regarding the restaurant — from ownership to menu to service to location — will remain the same,” says the release from co-owners Dan Sidner and Joe Muench.
The Southern Comfort liqueur, a mix of spirits, spices and other flavors, was first called “Cuffs and Buttons” by the bartender who invented the concoction in 1874, M.W. Heron. In a bid to expand his product’s marketability, Heron later renamed it “Southern Comfort: The Grand Old Drink of the South” and began bottling in the late-1890s.
Further comment from Sidner and Muench and the Southern Comfort Liquor Company was not available.
