Drink Company Liquid Death Claims It's Changing The Name Of Its Iced Tea With Lemonade To 'Dead Billionaire' After Threat of Legal Action Over Previous Name 'Armless Palmer'

A drink company is changing the name of its canned tea with lemonade after the threat of legal action over the beverage's previous name, which invoked gold legend and beverage visionary Arnold Palmer.

According to drink company Liquid Death, gone is the beverage's previous name "Armless Palmer," but say hello to its new moniker, "Dead Billionaire."

Surely, both the Arnold Palmer estate will be much cooler with that one...

You can't just go around calling your tea and lemonade concoction an "Arnold Palmer" unless you fancy a nice cease and desist letter. That belongs to the folks at Arizona Iced Tea.

I'm a long-time fan of a nice blend of tea and lemonade. It's no secret that it's an aggressively held trademark and I have even heard tales of small, local restaurants getting told to take the legendary golfer's name off the menu. The Shirley Temple estate never gets all upset if people sell those, but there are people working overtime to protect the Arnold Palmer legacy of one Arnold Palmer.

Liquid Death's Appears To Have Been Ready With A New Name

That happened to the Liquid Death folks but they had an answer. The brand, which specializes in water and teas marketed with an irreverent edge shared the new "Dead Billionaire" name on Instagram.

"If you like our Armless Palmer tea/lemonade, then you are going to LOVE our new Dead Billionaire tea/lemonade. Why? Because it's the EXACT same thing, only now it has a way cooler name that won't require us to fight a senseless legal battle with a large enterprise who sent us a letter saying we can't use the word "Palmer" and who are also partnered with a giant iced tea corporation. Both of whom have far more $$$ to burn on legal fees than we do," the company wrote.

"Our new Dead Billionaire cans have started to trickle out on Amazon and will begin hitting retail shelves in the spring. Experts are predicting potential brawls in retailers as customers fight over remaining Armless Palmer cans before they become extinct forever and reselling as collectors items for billions of dollars."

I think they were goofing about that last part, but you never know.

Wanting to protect your trademark makes sense, but it seems like the Arnold Palmer folks walked into this one. "Dead Billionaire" is a bit more objectionable by my estimation, but that's too bad because the Liquid Death people were playing chess in this instance.

Follow on X: @Matt_Reigle