The actor Pedro Pascal is waging a legal battle against a Chilean pisco merchant who has chosen a cheeky name for his brand of the country’s national spirit: Pedro Piscal.
David Herrera registered the brand name with a Chilean commercial regulator in 2023 and began selling his pisco in off-licences and restaurants.
“We tried a few names and Pedro Piscal stuck,” Herrera, 41, said. “Then we were planning a trip up to the Pisco region when suddenly we were getting strongly worded emails from lawyers. Me, a mere mortal, getting emails from a superstar actor? It scared me a bit.”
The Pedro Piscal brand name was registered with a Chilean commercial regulator in 2023. Photograph: Pedro Piscal
Pascal, who was born in Chile and is a popular figure in his home country, did not attend a court hearing but filed to take control of the brand name on account of its similarity with his own name and brand.
Herrera is not the first Chilean entrepreneur to have found themselves facing down a Hollywood A-lister in court over a cheeky pun. A honey business calling itself Miel Gibson – using a still from Braveheart on the label – won the right to keep using the name after the actor sued.
Miel Gibson fought off a legal challenge from its Hollywood near namesake. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images
In 2020, DC Comics went after a bakery in Santiago that had called itself Superpan for three decades and used images of Clark Kent and his famous “S” symbol. The bakery emerged victorious.
And across town, not far from a printing business named Harry Plotter, Matías Jara runs Star Wash, a car wash service that borrows liberally from the Star Wars canon – and even uses its famous font.
Matías Jara of Star Wash in Santiago. Photograph: Matías Jara/Star Wash
“Chileans are mischievous, that’s the thing,” Jara said. “We are always messing around and joking. We change the lyrics to songs in English to Chileanise them, and we like wordplay – I love Star Wars and just wanted to stand out with my brand.”
Once a month, motorists can get their footwells vacuumed under the watchful gaze of Chewbacca or sit at the wheel while a gaggle of Stormtroopers supervise the polishing of their windshield, as the forecourt has become a popular meetup place for cosplayers.
Star Wash won its initial legal battle with Lucasfilm, the rights holder to the Star Wars franchise, to keep using the name but is still waiting for a ruling in another case that could force Jara to change the company’s name.
As for Pedro Piscal, Herrera said: “I don’t regret it for a moment.” He said he and his cousins were partial to a piscola – pisco and Coca-Cola poured over ice – and would call it a piscal. He said Pedro came from the pedro ximénez grape variety, from which the spirit is distilled.
But the actor’s lawyers saw it differently. Juan Pablo Silva, the managing partner at the firm representing Pascal, said he was unable to comment on an ongoing case. However, he highlighted initial rulings that transferred ownership of two online domains from Herrera to Pascal, as well as the actor successfully trademarking his name, as reasons for the firm’s optimism over a decision that could come before the end of the year.
Herrera said: “We don’t use [Pascal’s] face or his likeness anywhere. We’re just selling a good product.”
