The Drink That Makes You Instantly Cooler — Coors Banquet.
Like it or not, the drink you order at a bar or bring to a house party says something about you. For example: Seltzer = Lightweight. Wine = Snob. Tequila = Psychopath. But that’s just my opinion. The other night, my friend showed up with his kid’s Star Wars thermos filled with vodka. Not sure what the hell that says. I’m guessing that he didn’t want others to drink his stash. For that, pro tip: keep a backup bottle on hand, and fill it with as much as you’re willing to sacrifice. Unlike your kid’s thermos, this approach won’t leave your favorite drink tasting like a SpaghettiO’s flavored cocktail. So, whether it’s a BBQ, bonfire, or fancy dinner party, make an entrance with something respectable. Something that tells people a little about you. Something that is drinkable, has integrity, and is a conversation starter. Enter Coors Banquet.
Let the Banquet Begin
Many great brands have a great origin story, and Coors Banquet’s beginnings are as rich and flavorful as its beer. Somewhere around 1873, Clear Creek Canyon miners packed work camps and banquet halls in Colorado. They were probably playing popular 19th century drinking games like Flippy Mug, Beer Pebble, and Never Have I Dagnabbit Ever. The miners’ beer of choice? Coors Golden Beer. It was made readily available thanks to the Colorado Central Railroad, which did its own chugging all the way from Golden, Colorado—home of the Coors Brewery, of course. Years later, after Prohibition (special thanks to Minnesota Congressman Andrew Volstead for drafting this anti-drinking legislation and quite possibly cursing our Minnesota sports teams in the process), Coors changed the name of Coors Golden Beer. Coors decided to pay homage to the Colorado miners, who had coined the nickname, “The Banquet Beer.” And let’s be honest, if Coors Banquet is good enough to wash down a little black lung, it’s good enough to wash down a black bean burrito.
You Can’t Always Drink What You Want
While the Rolling Stones were big fans of Yellow Jackets (yes, Banquet Beer has more than one cool nickname), their 1969 hit single, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” wasn’t about the scarcity of their favorite beer. Unlike party supplies on a Stones tour, Coors Original (now Banquet) was very hard to find in their heyday. In fact, it was only available west of the Mississippi before 1981. Coors has always made quality a priority and because it was cold filtered, unpasteurized, and had no preservatives, the brewery would only distribute to states where they could ensure the beer would stay cold long enough during shipping. It wasn’t until Indiana got their buzz on in 1991 that all fifty states became Coors Country. This shortage created what I can only equate to as an In-N-Out Burger-like cult status where the biggest celebrities at the time, including Paul Newman, Carl Yastrzemski, and Tom Waits were known to hoard it. Even President Ford got his smuggle on, sending Air Force One on the most prestigious beer run of all time. And let us not forget the 1977 film, Smokey and the Bandit in which Burt Reynolds plays bootlegger Bandit Darville, as he leads an illegal convoy of Coors from Texas to Georgia. Bandit may have had a complete lack of respect for the law, but his moustache shows the ultimate respect for Coors by brooming up every foamy ounce of that illegal, sudsy substance.
Hey Mark Harmon, You Can Be My Wingman Anytime
Coors celebrity endorsements go all the way back to Mark Harmon when he was Banquet’s Master of Ceremonies in a series of 1980’s beer commercials. Harmon was a hot commodity in the late ‘80s, fresh off the heels of being named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive and starring in the critically acclaimed film, Summer School. Yes, that’s right, “critically acclaimed” — it earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of 63%. Compare that with Top Gun’s 56% and it makes you wonder if history could have been different. What might have happened if the producers of Top Gun would have only realized you can’t spell “Maverick” without “Mark.” With a few cases of his favorite beer, Harmon could have buzzed the tower in a completely different way. He could have bought Kelly McGillis a post-serenade Yellow Jacket. He could have sent Tom Cruise’s career into a tailspin with a possible butterfly effect of saving Katie Holmes from Scientology (the folks who believe an Alien overlord froze its population and dumped them into a Hawaiian volcano thus releasing their souls into the atmosphere and inhabiting our human bodies). Wow, what could have been Mark Harmon. What could have been.
Don’t Call It a Coors Comeback
From craft breweries to PBR pounders, beer always seems to be trending. Perhaps the Banquet Beer has become more binge-worthy now that it’s featured in various binge-worthy TV shows. Both Yellowstone and Cobra Kai feature Yellow Jackets on the regular — which is either genius marketing or the perfect bad-ass character development tool.
The Yellow Jackets of Yellowstone
The TV show Yellowstone is great. Almost too great. Proof that it was concocted in a lab with A.I. predictive modeling. Family secrets? Check. Crime? Check. A daughter character that validates the Crazy/Hot Matrix theory? Check. Yes, Yellowstone is basically Succession on a horse ranch. And hands down the most covetable character on Yellowstone is both the most unlikely to ever wear a golf shirt, and the most die-hard Coors Banquet consumer—Rip Wheeler. With a name like that, I probably don’t need to explain more, but for the sake of content creation, I will. Cool, calm and sometimes cruel, Rip’s main job is to protect his adopted family’s legacy from land-hungry gold diggers with a brute, yet perfectly trimmed facial-hair force. However, there’s more than anger behind those aviator sunglasses. Late in season three, Rip proves he’s more than just a roughneck. With a sidepiece of Coors Banquet, he charms the pants off the pants-wearer of all pants-wearers, none other than shit-talking Beth Dutton. Further proof that with a quick draw of a snub-nosed, beer pistol from its six-pack holster, even this crazy hot cowgirl is no match for enduring allure of Coors Banquet.
All Valley Banquet
If what Tom Petty sang is true, it’s a long day livin’ in Reseda, then Johnny Lawrence is going to need a lot of beer. While he may not be the hero of the 1984 All Valley Tournament, he’s my hero of 2020. What’s not to like? He snaps Banquet bottle caps across the room as if he’s halving a watermelon in Fruit Ninja. He’s living proof that holding a Yellow Jacket is cool whether coaching karate in a strip mall or outmaneuvering a margarita in a Mexican restaurant. There’s even a scene that shows him passed out after a night of erasing a 12-pack. A scene that, for some wrong reason, made me say “Johnny’s awesome” to my 13-year-old son as we watched it together. That’s because like most Banquet drinkers, Johnny defies convention because he couldn’t care less what other people think. Johnny knows what he likes and would rather be a lone wolf than follow a pansy-ass pack of lap dogs. So, the next time you head to a friend’s house with a six-pack of Banquets, just imagine the same tune that blares from Johnny’s cherry-red Firebird becoming your perfect, house party walk-up song—Whitesnake’s, “Here I Go Again On My Own.”
But Don’t Take It From Me
Order a Coors Banquet and people will know your taste bubble is as on center as your dad’s trusty level. A real beer the way beer was meant to taste. No subtle hints of apricot. No floral undertones. Nope. Just beer, baby. But if you’re of the millennial mindset and demand an online review, check out the two basement beauties below on KY Brew Review. They go by Radar and Special K. Or as I call them, Not on Any Girl’s Radar and Special K Bars by the Pan Load. Consider them The Weird Science, Siskel and Ebert of Suds. While critical of Coors Banquet, Radar and Special K still find the beer enjoyable and provide such keen insights as, “it tastes like beer,” “you can drink it like a normal human,” and “if someone gave me one, I would definitely drink it.” To sum it up, they rate the beer, something like, 5.5 Wizard Staffs out of 10.
Which leaves me with this closing thought: if Coors Banquet is considered a solid choice by the cast of Cobra Kai, Yellowstone, and now Big Bang Theory, it might just be the perfect drink no matter what company you keep.
