Dunedin DoubleWood

The co-owner of award-winning whisky Dunedin DoubleWood is threatening to launch a social media campaign against a Scottish whisky giant if it continues legal threats.

William Grant and Sons claims the New Zealand Whisky Company's use of the name DoubleWood confuses consumers with its Balvenie DoubleWood brand.

New Zealand Whisky Company chief executive and co-owner Greg Ramsay said his company received another legal threat from William Grant and Sons last month.

Consumers could not confuse the two products, he said. The Dunedin DoubleWood bottle (pictured at left) featured a map of New Zealand and had a black box.

''Balvenie has a white box, white label and to my knowledge doesn't refer to New Zealand at all.''

Mr Ramsay said the DoubleWood whisky had been coming from Oamaru for nearly 10 years but the company registered the DoubleWood trademark recently.

Soon after, the whisky received media attention by winning a silver medal at the San Francisco Spirits Awards and ''liquid gold status'' in the 2014 Whisky Bible.

Balvenie whisky had been produced for more than 120 years.

William Grant and Sons head office in Surrey and legal representatives in Auckland were unavailable for comment last night.

- shawn.mcavinue@odt.co.nz