The flavoured drink was The Wensleydale Spirit Company’s take on world-famous spirit tequila.
But Mexican producers failed to appreciate the Yorkshire sense of humour – and complained through the British Embassy.
They accused the Leyburn-based firm of infringing the geographical indication for Tequila, despite it being produced more than 5,000 miles from the Mexican city and clearly stating it had been inspired by the drink on the bottle.
The drink branded “a tango of Yorkshire charm and Mexican Spirit” was only launched last July.
Distillery founder Chris Taplin, right, said he had been “completely blind-sided by the demand from Mexico” but had no choice other than to drop the name. The innovative entrepreneur added: “They are clearly lacking a sense of humour.
“How they thought a small distillery in the Yorkshire Dales could be a threat to the multibillion-pound tequila industry, I am not quite sure. It’s quite flattering in a way we were able to ruffle a few sombreros.”
Mr Taplin continued: “With having a slightly different sort of tongue-in-cheek take on tequila, we called it t’Quila.
“We were not claiming it was true tequila that has to be made within 60 miles of the town in Mexico. It was a nod to the spirit with the botanicals we were using.
“It was all going well until we got the notification through.
“Basically they wanted us to withdraw with immediate effect all bottles and stop any reference to tequila. We tried to argue our case, but they were not having any of it.
“Because it was not an agave-based spirit, we rebranded it as a vodka and relaunched it as t’q Vodka.”
