Me gusta la biblioteca. ¿Que hora es y dónde está el baño? That pretty much exhausts our Spanish 101 language skills, but you don't have to be un experto to recognize the name El Chapo. Chapo, meaning Shorty, is the alias of ruthless Sinaloa Cartel drug lord Joaquín Guzmán. This seriously bad hombre was once worth $1 billion US, was called “the most powerful drug trafficker in the world” by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and escaped from prison twice before being extradited to the United States in January 2017.

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El Chapo's fearsome reputation inspired the crew at Zombie Tools to name their latest blade El Choppo — we can't deny it, that's a pretty solid pun. ZT doubles up on the artful wordplay with its description of the new knife:

If you have the huevos to wander the narrow street of the barrio late, late at night, when tequila worms dream in the bellies of snoring whores, you can sometimes hear slurred songs stumble out the doors of certain cantinas, songs in the style of the narcocorrido, that tell the tale of the knife, El Choppo. Forged in the high mountains to a family that looked up to dirt, El Choppo was raised thwacking at banana trees and cane, chopping kindling for the stove, and fighting back a forest avowed to reclaim all fields.

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Putting aside the clever product description, we'll get down to the facts. The Zombie Tools El Choppo is a 24.75-inch knife forged from sturdy 5160 steel. The 8.5-inch curved handle is clad in dark aluminum scales, and then wrapped in a strip of black leather. It includes a fitted Kydex sheath, and like all Zombie Tools blades, it's handmade in America (specifically Missoula, Montana) from American materials.

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The El Choppo will set you back $290, and it's made to order, so there's a 6-8 week wait time. However, if our past experience with the company's Vakra kukri is any indication, this blade will be able to take a beating. For more information on the Zombie Tools El Choppo and other ZT blades, go to ZombieTools.net.

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