Le Brun, arguably Lebanon’s most prestigious commercial arak, has spent $100,000 on a packaging facelift. The move comes after a swift and effective response last year to a rash of fake bottles of Le Brun, which is over 100 years old, that had found their way onto the shelves of small and medium sized outlets. Even though the fake bottles only represented around 10% of Le Brun’s market share and have since been removed by government inspectors, Domaine des Tourelles, the company which owns the Brun label, felt it had to respond to avoid similar instances of brand piracy in the future.
“We have used new glass for our bottles and printed a new label that while the same is harder to copy,” explains Christiane Issa, Domaine des Tourelles’ marketing manager, who added that as of now Le Brun is be responsible for its own off and on-trade distribution of the 75,000 bottles it produces each year at its famous Chtoura distillery. According to Issa, the fakers were not particularly clever: “The capsules (cork covers) were very bad quality, the arak tasted awful and the bar codes were the same for the big bottles as well as the small bottles. Fortunately none were found at the major supermarkets, where there is a more discerning clientele.”
This is not the only example of piracy to hit the $10 million Lebanese arak industry. Massaya, who pioneered the arak revival with their blue bottles, have also reported copies of both their distinctive blue arak bottles and wine in Syria, while during the civil war many of Lebanon’s famous brands were regularly copied and exported, especially to the US, causing confusion among Lebanese exiles seeking solace in Lebanon’s national tipple.
