Cowboy Up aims to bring cowboy lifestyle to energy drink market

The life of a rancher means standing with one boot dusted in cowboy culture and the other taking its shine from entrepreneurship. Somewhere on the frontier between both worlds is the brand. Husband and wife team Bert and Montie Madera own and operate the Pitchfork Cattle Company, a ranch that runs cattle on 32,000 acres west of Jal in Lea County, N.M. Aside from the brand on their roughly 700 head of cattle, they control a brand that may be familiar to imbibers of energy drinks, Cowboy Up. While cattle brands long have served to provide evidence of ownership, the brand of an energy drink sets it apart from others on the shelf. In the case of Cowboy Up, the owners hope to tie their drink to the lifestyle shared by others who live the cowboy way. "We've heard that saying for years, 'cowboy up,'" Bert said, "so it fits right in." The Madera family has been working a ranch since 1932, when Bert's grandfather Rufus founded the operation that would grow into the Pitchfork (not to be confused with the larger ranch by the same name in King County). Now the ranch is home to a fifth generation of Madera ranchers, with three teenage grandchildren lending a hand to get cattle to market...more