Eldridge Hudson, Eric Booker and Larry Anderson were part of the last UNLV basketball team to play at the Las Vegas Convention Center before the opening of the Thomas & Mack Center.
They are still considered among the most legendary players in program history. “We were the only show in town, basically,” Booker recalled. “We were the sports team in Las Vegas. We sold that convention center out of 22 games.”
Now, Hudson, Booker and Anderson have embarked on a new adventure together: a tequila business. The aptly named 3-Point Tequila is poised to be distributed within a month or so.
The idea for the spirit first originated more than a decade ago with Hudson and his business partner Leo Chavez. He invited Booker and Anderson into the business because they’re like his “big brothers,” Hudson said.
“When Eldridge invited me to come join the team (at) 3-Point Tequila, I jumped at it,” said Booker, who has been in the casino industry now for nearly 30 years. “I mean, there was no question about it. … He was like a little brother to me, and still is, so there was no hesitation in my answer.”
Twelve years since the product was first thought up and despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Booker said it’s exciting for the team at 3 Point Tequila that the product will finally be ready for distribution soon.
“We can finally breathe,” said Hudson, who is also a local high school basketball coach.
The product’s name and bottling—which depicts a basketball going through the net—are fitting for Booker, Anderson and Hudson given their past, Booker said. The 100% blue agave tequila comes from Jalisco, Mexico.
“It’s very smooth, there’s no burn, there’s no after, ugly face when you drink it,” Hudson joked. “You don’t need salt or lime. Not only that, but it’s a very good sipping cocktail.”
Multicolored bottles of the product will be available, including one that’s pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month—an issue important to Hudson, who noted that both his mother and wife are breast cancer survivors. The tequila will also come in miniature bottles for airlines, cruise lines and more, Booker said.
With the tequila’s impending release, he added, it’s important that people in Las Vegas know about the product.
“You’ve got some local talented gentlemen right here in the area that now have another product that you can buy locally, instead of always going outside of Las Vegas and going to other distributors to buy their products,” Booker said. “Local guys right here.”
The company has many goals going forward, he said, including the addition of reposado and añejo tequilas.
“Where we’re sitting at right now, I think we’re looking pretty darn good,” Booker said.
The friends and partners have collaborated for so long, they’re like brothers, and the “sky’s the limit” on what they can accomplish going forward, he said.
“We always agree at the end,” Hudson said. “It’s just like playing basketball. You might disagree, but at the end of the day, the main goal is to win, and that is our main goal, to win. How do you do that? You trust one another. And we trust each other wholeheartedly.”
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This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.