Picking a Name, Or What About “Marquis de Cerevisiae?”

As I mentioned in the previous post, when I started working on development of what would become the Cicerone Certification Program, there were already people calling themselves “Beer Sommelier.” Also, at least one school taught a course by that name. But in talking with people in the industry about this idea, one of the clear messages I received was “Don’t call it ‘Beer Sommelier!’”

The problem comes in the fact that “sommelier” is a wine term. Beer people have long felt looked down upon by wine people so this was a sensitive point. I was told in no uncertain terms that people in the beer industry did not want to borrow a term from wine in the naming of beer experts.

In addition, I sought to create a certification that would be distinctive and valuable to those who earned it. To do that, I needed a unique name for the certification—something that could be trademarked so that only those who had fulfilled the requirements of the certification would be permitted to use that title.

By June of 2007, I had decided that the idea of a “beer sommelier” program was worth pursuing. I was already working on the content by drafting the Master Syllabus, but I was still missing a name—and that was critical to nail down well before the launch.

So I started looking for a word or title I could use. I did a lot of brainstorming on my own in sessions where I’d just start trying to think of anything that might possibly work and writing them all down.

Early on I realized that an existing word might never be found to serve my purpose. As alternatives, I started making up new words like “Beertender” and combinations like “Master of Beer” that might serve and also prove to be protectable. I recently dug up some of my old files and here are some of the names I considered:

Cerbosier
Biere serveur
Bier Kellner
Maitre d’biere
Counselor de Cerevisiae
Cereveur

While I thought—at the time—that some of these might be OK, I clearly never loved any of them because I kept looking.

In general, I’ve never been a big fan of the thesaurus. I figure that if I don’t already know the word, I probably have no business using it in my writing. But this was a special case: I actually wanted a word that I didn’t know! So in 2007, searching through a thesaurus became part of my ritual. I’d think of a word related to what I was trying to do and look it up then read all the alternatives to see what popped up.

At some point in this process, I wrote down this whopper: “Marquis de Cerevisiae.” I knew immediately that it wasn’t something I’d ever use, but once something pops into your head, you have to write it down so you can dismiss it. Dismiss it I did!

At some point it had been a few weeks since I started working on the name in earnest and I was starting to get a little frustrated—maybe even desperate (as the “Marquis de Cerevisiae” title shows!). Then one day as I was thinking about the certification and what role the people holding it should have, I remembered that I was thinking of them as guides to the world of beer. So I looked up “guide” in the thesaurus and started reading:

“mentor,  model,  counselor,  teacher,  pilot,  superintendent,  chaperon,  docent,  usher,  cicerone,  convoy …” 

“Wait a minute,” I thought. “Cicerone?”  I looked at it again. Read it to myself again and thought, “Yes. ‘Cicerone.’ That’s my word.”

It would take me months before I’d realized some of the subtle reasons why this word had immediate appeal. While it didn’t look anything like the word “sommelier,” it shared some similarities. “Cicerone” started with a sibilant “s” sound and it also had the same number of syllables as sommelier (at least the way I pronounce it). Just as important, it satisfied my key linguistic criteria. As a Latin word, it was vaguely foreign but not exotic or difficult to pronounce. Best of all, it was neither French (which is closely tied to wine culture) nor German (which is closely tied to lager culture). It was, for my purposes, the perfect word.

From the moment I read the word “cicerone” in the thesaurus, I never seriously considered any other word or construct for the program. Soon I was running it by the lawyers for searches and vetting and they gave it the thumbs up. From that day forward, I began to cultivate the word “Cicerone” as a title to designate our certified beer experts.

That’s really what you are going to call it?

Everyone knows that selecting a name is only the first step to launching a business and a brand. Next you have to bounce it off some people and see what they think. I began that process with some friends in the industry. Some liked it and honestly some didn’t. Some felt it silly or pretentious, I guess but I don’t really recall anyone saying flat out, “that’s terrible.” Instead they’d make a little joke, or maybe if that didn’t work, they’d express disbelief and say, “that’s really what you are going to call it?”

I could handle skepticism. I knew that with anything new, it would take a bit of time for people to adapt, adjust, and accept this sort of title. I also knew that things wouldn’t happen overnight and that it would take time for the whole idea as well as the name to catch on. A key factor in this was that when I explained the origins and meaning of the word, people would agree that it was a fitting and suitable word for what we wanted to do. They still might not like the word, but they had to take it seriously at that point regardless of how they felt about it. From that base, I felt I could make it work.

And that brings me to perhaps one of the most important factors in that decision: the fact that I believed in the name. I didn’t think it was silly or shallow. I felt really good about the long history of the word and its meaning as “guide” in English and the appropriateness of that tie for what I was trying to do. I knew that I could stand in front of a room full of people and present and defend it without reservation. And I knew that I could explain it again and again—hundreds, maybe thousands, of times—without feeling I was fighting a losing battle. I did, eventually do all those things and through it all, I never once felt any regret about the name of the program.

Just recently, Steve Hindy co-founder of Brooklyn Brewing and author of Beer School, admitted to me that he was one of those who was not a big fan of the name when it first came out but that he’d been impressed by the way it had developed as a brand over the years. Given his experience and his success with his company, that certainly felt good.

One of the people who expressed support for it early on was my old friend Randy Mosher. Early on, he’d had some doubts about the concept overall, but the marketer in him felt the name was solid. Of course I’d gone to him soon after deciding I’d commit to the name. An early step in creating any brand is pulling together a logo and Randy was my long-time go-to guy for that. He saw the value of “Cicerone” as a unique word that could be directly associated with beer service and our certifications and he liked the story that went with the word. We talked about the basic plan and my vision and he set to work on a logo. What emerged was the “hand and glass” concept that we use to this day.

Of course “Cicerone” is easy to pronounce if you assume it is an English word and say it the way it looks: “sis-uh-rone.” But that hasn’t stopped some variations in pronunciation from popping up. A common one is the Italian take. Since “cicerone” is a common word in that language (and some other romance languages), people sometimes want to adopt the pronunciation of that language. As a result, we get people who call it “chee-cha-rown” or “chee-cha-row-nee.”  A mild variant of that comes from those who want to use our preferred pronunciation, but can’t seem to stop themselves from throwing a long “e” in that first syllable, making it “see-sa-rone” instead of “sis-uh-rone.”

Soon after settling on the name, I began the trademark process. Today we own a whole suite of trademarks on the word, the titles we award, and the logo designs for each of the certifications. Currently, these cover the US, plus 16 other countries and the European Union as well. As we expand internationally, this work continues.

We’re fortunate today that nearly everyone in the beer industry and a large part of the hospitality industry knows that a “Cicerone” is a beer expert. Indeed, that knowledge has gone so far that these days we spend some time most weeks correcting improper use of the word.

In order for someone to be called a Cicerone, they must have earned one of the top three certifications in our program: Certified Cicerone^®, Advanced Cicerone^®, or Master Cicerone^®. Any other use of the word Cicerone related to beer (even if not capitalized) is a trademark violation.

Finally, since it is both a trademark and the proper name of this certification program, any use of the word Cicerone in this context should be capitalized.