The classic mocktail Shirley Temple is said to have been created for the child actor when she was enviously eying her parents old-fashioneds and wanted her own drink. A resourceful bartender mixed lemon-lime soda and ginger ale, added some grenadine and garnished the creation with a maraschino cherry. 

Being considered a girly drink, solely because of its name, boys wanted a drink they could relate better to (mind you, this was some 80 years ago) so during the 1940s someone came up with the Roy Rogers. Nothing was more popular amongst boys during the 40s and 50s than cowboys and actor/singer Roy Rogers was one of the most popular. Also Mr Rogers himself didn’t drink alcohol. 

Roy Rogers, also known as The Singing Cowboy or The King of the Cowboys was born Leonard Franklin Slye in 1911 and early took up singing and playing the guitar. During the Great Depression he actually worked as a cowhand in New Mexico making him an actual cowboy. He began his long career in 1935 in the country singing group Sons of the Pioneers. A few years later he became star in his own movies, often with his wife to be, Dale Evans, and his horse Trigger, who got almost as famous as Rogers himself. He ended up making some 90 movies from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s and over 100 episodes of a weekly tv-show, The Roy Rogers Show from 1951–1957. Always portraying the good guy he was the cowboy who shot the guns from the villains hands rather than trying to kill them.

Interestingly, but not officially, if you watch the Disney/Pixar Toy Story 2 from 1999, the character Woody learns that he is actually the main character from a 1950s TV show called Woody’s Roundup. In the show within the movie he has a horse named Bullseye and a girlfriend called Jessie. It’s hard not to see the similarities with The Roy Rogers Show with Woody as Roy, Jessie as Dale and Bullseye as Trigger. 

The glass for the Roy Rogers is called Birds was designed by Tomoko Mizu in 2022.

Product information

This is one in a series of illustrations of classic cocktail recipes with a selection of the most beautifully designed glasses.

The size 40x50 cm (approx 16x20”) are signed and printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Bright White 310g archival paper and are sold in a limited edition of 50 prints.

The size 30x40 cm (approx 12x16”) are printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Studio Enhanced 210g archival paper.