Terry Bradshaw announced on Instagram ahead of the 2026 Kentucky Derby that his Bradshaw Bourbon brand is partnering with The Yard, a beloved grilled cheese and gastropub brand in Pittsburgh, for Derby Day celebrations on Saturday May 2.
The Yard shared the news on its own Instagram account:
“Saddle up. It’s Derby Day at The Yard. We’re teaming up with Terry Bradshaw to pour his new Bradshaw Bourbon all day long.”
The partnership placed Bradshaw’s bourbon in front of one of the most bourbon-friendly crowds in American sports.
More than 125,000 Mint Juleps, the Kentucky Derby’s official cocktail, traditionally made with bourbon, fresh mint, sugar and crushed ice, are served at Churchill Downs each Derby weekend.
Every bottle poured on Derby Day is an advertisement for bourbon as a category, and Bradshaw’s brand was positioned to benefit from exactly that environment through its Pittsburgh partnership.
The Derby itself delivered one of the most remarkable results in the race’s history. Golden Tempo, a 39-1 longshot from Post 19, won the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby, with trainer Cherie DeVaux becoming the first female trainer in history to win the event.
The race drew nearly 20 million viewers on NBC, the most-watched Kentucky Derby on record. Whatever bourbon was poured in Pittsburgh that afternoon had an extraordinary sporting backdrop.
The Man Behind The Bourbon
Terry Bradshaw needs a brief introduction only because his life has been long enough to contain several careers that most people would be satisfied to have one of.
He was born on September 2, 1948 in Shreveport, Louisiana and grew up in Camanche, Iowa, before his family settled in Shreveport, where he developed into one of the more gifted football players the state of Louisiana has produced.
He attended Louisiana Tech University, where he threw for 7,149 yards over his college career before the Pittsburgh Steelers selected him with the first overall pick in the 1970 NFL Draft.
What followed across the next 14 seasons in Pittsburgh is the foundation of everything.
Bradshaw led the Steelers to four Super Bowl victories, IX, X, XIII and XIV, making him the first quarterback to win four Super Bowls, a record he held until Tom Brady surpassed it decades later.
He was named Super Bowl MVP twice, for his performances in Super Bowl XIII and XIV. He was a three-time Pro Bowl selection.
The Pittsburgh teams he quarterbacked in the 1970s, with Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Franco Harris, Mel Blount, Jack Lambert and Jack Ham, are frequently cited as one of the greatest dynasties in professional sports history.
He wore number 12 throughout his Steelers career, the number he later immortalized in the name of his most exclusive bourbon expression.
Bradshaw’s Life After Football
Bradshaw retired from playing in 1983 and did not slow down in any measurable sense.
He joined Fox Sports as an analyst on Fox NFL Sunday, the pregame show, and has been part of that broadcast for decades, alongside Howie Long, Michael Strahan and Jimmy Johnson.
Fox NFL Sunday remains one of the most-watched programs in American television during football season.
He is the only NFL player with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, an achievement that reflects the crossover into entertainment that has defined his post-football decades.
He appeared in the 2006 romantic comedy Failure to Launch alongside Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker. He has released country music albums.
He has worked as a motivational speaker. He has been a consistent presence in American pop culture for more than 40 years after his last professional snap.
But the passion that has run quietly alongside everything else, the one that connects most directly to the bourbon partnership, is horses.
Bradshaw has bred championship quarter horses for decades. It is not a celebrity hobby or a vanity project.
It is a genuine and long-standing part of his life outside of football and television.
Quarter horse racing and the culture of American horse sport have been meaningful to him in ways that predate the bourbon brand and give it a foundation that most celebrity spirits ventures lack.
When he launched Bradshaw Bourbon in 2020, he said directly that the brand came from his two longstanding passions, horses and whiskey.
The Kentucky Derby partnership with The Yard is the clearest expression of that foundation, his bourbon, at his favorite sporting event, on Derby Day.
The Bourbon Itself
Bradshaw Bourbon launched in 2020 as a small-batch Kentucky straight bourbon.
The flagship expression is built around aromas of vanilla, toffee and toasted oak, the classical Kentucky bourbon profile, with a flavor profile of baking spice and coconut and what the brand describes as a long, warm finish.
The positioning is premium without being inaccessible, and the production quality reflects genuine investment rather than a label-and-move celebrity exercise.
The brand expanded significantly in 2026 with two cask-strength single barrel expressions that represent a serious step up in ambition.
The first is a six-year aged expression produced at Green River Distilling Co., the 10th-oldest distillery in Kentucky, located in Owensboro, with roots deep in the state’s bourbon heritage.
The decision to partner with Green River rather than a newer or flashier production facility is a signal about how seriously Bradshaw Bourbon takes its Kentucky credentials.
The second 2026 addition is the TB-12-Year, a 12-year aged limited expression named as a direct tribute to his jersey number 12.
Fewer than 25 barrels were produced. That scarcity is not marketing language, fewer than 25 barrels represents a genuinely small release, the kind of production number that means most people who want a bottle will not be able to get one at retail.
Limited single-barrel releases at that age and production level are the currency of serious bourbon collectors, not casual celebrity merchandise buyers.
The TB-12-Year’s existence at the Kentucky Derby partnership is particularly pointed.
Bradshaw’s most exclusive, most age-worthy expression, bearing his number in its name, poured at the most bourbon-saturated sporting event in America. The branding alignment is deliberate.
The Yard And The Pittsburgh Connection
The Yard is not a random hospitality partner. It is a Pittsburgh institution, a grilled cheese and gastropub brand that has become one of the more beloved restaurant concepts in the city.
The choice to anchor the Derby Day partnership to a Pittsburgh brand reflects Bradshaw’s genuine and sustained connection to the city where he spent his entire playing career.
Pittsburgh’s relationship with Bradshaw is the kind that a city develops with someone who brought it four championships.
He left when his playing days ended, but the affection runs in both directions.
His Instagram announcement of the partnership reached Pittsburgh Steelers fans across the country, a group that is among the most geographically distributed fanbases in the NFL, with Steelers bars in virtually every major American city.
Derby Day at The Yard, with Bradshaw Bourbon on tap, is a way to reach that audience where they already celebrate.
What The Kentucky Derby Means For Bourbon
The Kentucky Derby and bourbon are not casually related. They are deeply and commercially intertwined.
The Mint Julep, whose traditional recipe requires bourbon as its base spirit, is the official cocktail of the Kentucky Derby, and the 125,000-plus that are served across Derby weekend at Churchill Downs represent one of the largest single-event bourbon consumption occasions anywhere in the world.
Kentucky straight bourbon is the state’s most iconic export, and the Derby is the state’s most iconic event.
Every major bourbon brand attempts to connect to the Derby in some form every year.
The brands that do it most effectively are the ones with the most natural claim to the intersection, Louisville Slugger and baseball, Bradshaw Bourbon and horse racing.
A four-time Super Bowl champion who has been breeding quarter horses for decades and produces his bourbon at one of Kentucky’s oldest distilleries has a more defensible claim to Derby authenticity than most celebrity brands attempting the same alignment.
Golden Tempo won the race. Cherie DeVaux made history. Nearly 20 million people watched. Somewhere in Pittsburgh, The Yard poured Bradshaw Bourbon all day long.
