Former Packers Player Tackles Tequila With El Bandito Yankee

Spirits Former Packers Player Tackles Tequila With El Bandito Yankee Jeanette Hurt Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I cover the indulgence of all things distilled, fermented and brewed. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Oct 27, 2022, 12:33pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Former NFL player Jim Bob Morris stands behind his tequila, El Bandito Yankee © 2022 Galdones Photography An NFL player, a NHL player and their buddy walk into a bar sounds like the setup of a joke, but it’s actually the origin of a stellar tequila brand that’s rapidly gaining traction. The story of El Bandito Yankee tequila started with Jim Bob Morris, a former Green Bay Packers player, and Chris Chelios, a former Chicago Blackhawks player. “Chris and my buddy Big Tony and I were in Chicago,” says Morris.

“We’ve been Christmas shopping all day on Dec. 19 of 2019, and we went to a bar afterward. ” Chelios ordered some tequila for the three of them.

“I tell Chris ‘I’m not a fan of this,’” Morris says. “I own a food ingredients company, along with 28 other companies, so I know this tequila isn’t good. I can tell it was adulterated with either glycerin or bad vanilla, and I didn’t like it.

So, he goes ‘Well, maybe we ought to do our own. ’” And that’s exactly what Morris and Chelios did – they created El Bandito Yankee tequila. “I say, ‘Okay, let’s do it,’” Morris says, adding that he sketched out a brand logo on the bar’s napkin that night.

“And I had the perfect name, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There’s this scene, and the colonel comes out and says ‘El bandito yankee. ’” Later that night, Morris drove back to his home in Bloomington, IL.

When he leaves his home, he always leaves the television on. “I walk in, and I swear to God, what movie is playing but Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and two seconds later, the el bandito yankee scene comes on,” Morris says. “This is destiny.

It’s God or the universe reaching out to me, giving me a message so I go to work on it. ” So, Morris started researching tequilas and traveling to Mexico, and he finds a distillery that does it using old school methods without using additives or pouring hydrochloric acid on the agave plants during the processing. “There are no fake oak aspects to our tequila, no fake vanilla,” Morris says.

MORE FOR YOU Why The Rock’s Social Media Muscle Made Him Hollywood’s Highest-Paid Actor Kanye West Reportedly Wanted To Name Album After Hitler A New, Bigger Student Loan Forgiveness Initiative Is Set To Launch — And It’s Not The One That You Think The master distiller he found to make their tequila is Corina Rojo, one of the few master distillers of tequila who is a woman. “To me, that’s the equivalent of having an NFL coach who is a woman,” he says. “She is an amazing distiller.

” Besides handcrafting the tequila, they also oxygenate the water, and the result is an extremely smooth tequila. After a series of pandemic-related setbacks and delays, El Bandito Yankee finally launched in October in 2021. Today, the tequila is distributed in 20 different states, in 21,000 locations, and it has received numerous platinum and gold awards.

“We’re growing every week, every month, and building a national brand is our goal,” Morris says. The tequila comes in two expressions, blanco, which retails for $39. 99, and reposado, which retails for $44.

99. The next expression will be añejo, which is double casked in sherry and port casks. It will likely be released in time for Christmas, he says.

“We also have a bourbon and a liqueur that we’re also going to come out with,” Morris says. The brand itself gives back to the community where it is made. “We have a lot of hard-working people on our team, and we wanted to give back to the community,” Morris says.

“We asked what they wanted, and they wanted soccer fields for their kids so that’s what we did. We developed soccer fields for that region. ” Follow me on Twitter .

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