Can an alcoholic drink be patented/trademarked? if so how?

Question

I have a friend who he and I are goign to try to get a alcholic drink he invented trademarked for possible use by other bars/restaurants and we want to know how to go about this

Answer 1

The difficulty is that there are so many recipes and methods of cooking that it may be difficult to demonstrate novelty and nonobviousness. I suggest that you do a search on the patent office web search, http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html, and see if there are close matches to your recipe. You should also look at cookbooks and other references.
If after your search, you still believe that you have a novel, non-obvious method; then you should consider if the business value of a patent is worth the $10,000 to $20,000 it is likely to cost you to hire a patent professional and obtain a US patent. Recipes are seldom patentable because they are commonly used and there is no way for one person to prove that he/she invented it. Otherwise you would have to pay royalties everytime you got a margarita or a screwdriver.
Companies like McDonald's et al can copyright a specific recipe for their secret sauce but one would only have to change 1 little thing to use it and sell it.
Trademarks are symbols like Apple's apple or Rolex's crown.

Answer 2

yes i guess. but i really dont know the procedures.