Chicago Bulls great Scottie Pippen sells out his Digits bourbon line stock at Richmond liquor store

It’s safe to say Johnny Highland and his son, Mikey, are huge Chicago Bulls fans – especially when it comes to vintage 1990s Bulls legends Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

Although Mikey, 14, was born years after the Bulls’ dynasty ended, his parents named him after Jordan. Yhe young high school point guard still has a stuffed bunny, Scottie, named after the other centerpiece of those legendary teams, Pippen.

So, when word spread that Pippen would be in Richmond Monday selling bottles of his bourbon brand, Digits, Johnny Highland pulled his son out of school for a few hours to meet the basketball great.

“My dad showed me film of the Bulls from back in the day” during the team’s historic, six-championship run ending in 1998, Mikey, whose dad coaches him at Wisconsin’s Wilmont Union High School, said.

The Highlands were among an estimated 250 people lined up to get their shot at a bottle of bourbon signed by Pippen.

Announced on Richmond’s International House of Wine and Cheese Facebook page late Wednesday, some in the line Thursday morning said they, too, called out of work or school for the chance to meet the retired star.

In honor of the event, Mikey’s mother gave him his birthday present – a Pippen basketball jersey – a few days early so he could wear it to see the Bulls legend.

Bourbon has become a very popular liquor now, store manager Brian Batridge said. The draw for the signing event was definitely Pippen.

“This is how you sell bourbon” for a celebrity, Batridge said - showing up at signing events to get the brand into customers’ hands. “He knows that.”

What they didn’t know was how popular the event would be. They had 100 bottles in the store and all were sold by the time Pippen arrived at 10 a.m.

The bourbon, which is produced by Savage & Cooke, retails for $69.99 per bottle.

There were no limits put on how many bottles each person could get, although Pippen only signed one per customer.

That is why Kent Stefaniak, of Genoa City, Wisc., bought three bottles; a signed one to keep on the shelf and two to drink. He’s not really a bourbon guy either.

“I have not tried it before. I like beer,” Stefaniak said.

Emile Kratz, also of Genoa City, said she was at work when her mom texted her at 7 a.m. with a screenshot of the Facebook announcement. “I asked my supervisor to get off to go” with promises she would use vacation time to do it. Instead, her boss let her go with a promise of getting a signed bottle and a photo with the star.

She and her girlfriend, Madison Maddocks, bought two bottles. One of them, pre-signed in the factory, was “just in case he didn’t show up,” Maddocks said.

Jack Carran stopped into the store at 8 a.m. for the planned 10:30 a.m. event. Since there were only a handful of people in line then, he decided to come back later. By then, all of the bottles had sold out.

Not all was lost for him, however. Carran works at boat dealer Skipper Buds and said he sold Pippen boats back in the 1990s. Pippen asked for Carran’s card after he reminded him of that past connection.

Then, as Carran was walking out the door, an announcement came from the back of the store. The distributor had just shown up with 15 more six-bottle boxes.

All 190 bottles were sold by the time Pippen left at 11 a.m.

The 20 people left in line gave Batridge their name, email and phone number. If the distributor and Pippen agree, plans were to ask him to sign more bottles at the distributor’s warehouse. Batridge would then let them know a bottle was available.