Let me tell you a story about a night club owner in Huntsville, Alabama, who created one of the most popular whiskey cocktails in America, watched a corporation steal it right out from under him, took them to court and won, got awarded exactly one dollar for his trouble, appealed and won again, went back to court for a second trial, and lost everything. And somehow, through all of that, the company that stole his drink is still selling it today like they invented it themselves.

If that sounds like the setup to a bad joke, well, stick with me.

How It Started

Back in 1980, Tony Mason was running a restaurant and lounge in Huntsville, Alabama. He’d been experimenting behind the bar, mixing up different combinations, trying to come up with something people would remember. One night he landed on it—Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, triple sec, sour mix, and lemon-lime soda served over ice. He called it the Lynchburg Lemonade, named after Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of the Jack Daniel’s distillery.

Now if you’ve never been to Lynchburg, you should know something: Moore County, where Lynchburg sits, is dry (okay, so they do allow Jack Daniel’s to sell commemorative bottles at their White Rabbit Bottle Shop at the distillery, but that’s a more recent thing). For decades you could tour the place, watch them make whiskey, smell that sweet mash cooking in the rickhouses, and then drive out of town without being able to legally buy a single bottle anywhere in the county. Mason, working out of Huntsville, had named his drink after a place that couldn’t even sell the main ingredient.

The Lynchburg Lemonade took off like a house on fire. Within a couple years it was bringing in about a third of Mason’s alcohol revenue, and he wasn’t about to let anyone walk off with it. He served the drink in mason jars with custom labels printed up special. He renamed his band “Tony Mason and the Lynchburg Revue.” He made T-shirts. And most importantly, he kept that recipe locked down—nobody got it unless he decided they could have it.

When Winston Randle Came Calling

Mason had just finished mixing up a Lynchburg Lemonade one night in February 1982 when in walks Winston Randle, a sales representative for Jack Daniel’s. Randle had been hearing about this drink everyone was ordering, wanted to know what was in it. Mason didn’t just hand over his recipe to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who asked, but Randle wasn’t asking as a customer. According to Mason, Randle made him a promise: give us the recipe and Jack Daniel’s would feature Mason and his band in their advertising campaign. A handshake deal. The kind of thing men used to do and actually honor.

So Mason told him.

By 1983, Jack Daniel’s had launched a national advertising campaign promoting the Lynchburg Lemonade. You could walk into bars from California to New York and order one. Bartenders everywhere were mixing them up. The drink was everywhere.

Mason and his band weren’t in any of those advertisements. There were no phone calls, no checks in the mail, no “hey Tony, thanks for the recipe.” The company from the town the drink was named after had taken what he’d built and rolled it out across the entire country without him.

Taking It to Court

In 1987, Mason did what you’d expect a man to do when he’s been wronged—he sued. He filed a lawsuit against Jack Daniel Distillery for more than $13 million in damages, claiming trade secret misappropriation. Here was a small restaurant owner from Huntsville, Alabama taking on one of the most recognizable whiskey brands in the world. David and Goliath, except David was armed with bar tabs and mason jars instead of a slingshot.

The case went to trial. The jury heard the whole story—how Mason created the drink in 1980, how he protected it, how Randle came in and got the recipe on a promise, how Jack Daniel’s went national without ever including Mason. When the jury came back, they found in Mason’s favor. Jack Daniel’s had wronged him. They’d misappropriated his trade secret.

Then came the damages: one dollar.

One dollar. The judge looked at that verdict and apparently couldn’t believe it either, because he offered to pay Mason the dollar out of his own pocket right there in the courtroom. Mason refused. This wasn’t about a dollar you could use to buy a Coke out of a machine. This was about being right, about a jury saying that what happened to him was wrong.

The Appeal and the Retrial

The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals took a look at that one-dollar verdict in 1987 and said hold on a minute. They overturned the decision and ordered a new trial, ruling that Mason could be entitled to more than nominal damages. The appeals court agreed that he’d been wronged and deserved real compensation for what Jack Daniel’s had taken from him. For a moment there, it looked like the system might actually work the way it’s supposed to.

The retrial came around in 1989.

This time Jack Daniel Distillery won outright. Mason walked away with nothing—not even that dollar the judge had offered to pay out of his own pocket two years earlier.

Where Things Stand Today

You can walk into just about any bar in America today and order a Lynchburg Lemonade. Most people drinking one don’t know who Tony Mason is or what happened in that Huntsville restaurant back in 1980. They don’t know about the mason jars with the custom labels or the band or the handshake promise that didn’t mean anything or the two trials. They just know it’s a good drink that goes down easy on a hot afternoon.

Jack Daniel’s still promotes the Lynchburg Lemonade. You can find it on their website, in their promotional materials, on cocktail menus around the world. Tony Mason’s name doesn’t show up anywhere. The drink became something bigger than one man’s fight in an Alabama courtroom, bigger than the recipe he protected for two years before someone convinced him to share it.

Every time a bartender mixes Jack Daniel’s with triple sec, sour mix, and lemon-lime soda, they’re making Tony Mason’s drink. The man who created it just doesn’t get any credit. Or compensation. Or even that one dollar.

Want to make a Lynchburg Lemonade yourself? Check out our recipe in our Cocktails section

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