What Is A Roy Rogers Drink And Is It The Same As A Rob Roy?

Mixing up your Roys is not a mistake you want to make, particularly when sitting at a swanky bar — or ordering for a child. A Roy Rogers is the Coca-Cola-flavored cousin of a Shirley Temple. While Shirley Temples feature ginger ale or a lemon-lime soda like Sprite, grenadine, and a maraschino cherry, a Roy Rogers simply swaps the ginger ale for Coke (or another type of cola). Both are nonalcoholic American favorites frequently ordered by children, abstaining adults, and nostalgia-seekers alike.

A Rob Roy, on the other hand, is a slow-sipping, alcohol-forward, very-grown-up cocktail similar to a Manhattan. Scotch, vermouth, and Angostura bitters are stirred with ice and served up in a chilled glass, then garnished with brandied cherries. And ordering one for a child is a bartender-confusing cocktail-ordering mistake that could also result in a call to the police. Though there's nothing stopping you from ordering a bubbly, boozy Shirley Temple for yourself.  

But apart from their American origins and similar garnishes, their shared reference to someone called "Roy" is the only thing Rob Roys and Roy Rogers have in common.

Roy Rogers is one of the world's most famous cowboys. A singer and musician who was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, he starred in numerous hugely popular westerns throughout the 1930s and '40s. Even if you can't recall ever seeing a Roy Rogers movie or TV show, or ever hearing of him at all, you've definitely heard his voice. He's the singer of several foundational country songs, like "Don't Fence Me In" and "Happy Trails." He also made television appearances with his famous horse Trigger in the 1950s.

Roy Rogers the drink really only relates to the singer tangentially. Roy Rogers the person apparently abstained from alcohol, so his good-guy image provided the perfect platform when marketing the drink in the 1950s. While Shirley Temple drank (and reportedly detested) her eponymous mocktail several times throughout the years, there's no evidence that Roy Rogers ever sipped a Roy Rogers.

The Waldorf Astoria in New York lays claim to the Rob Roy. According to the Waldorf Astoria Bar Book, the drink was inspired by an operetta being put on in Herald Square Theatre, close to the Waldorf's original Fifth Avenue address. The operetta is about 18th century Scottish hero Rob Roy MacGregor, a Robin Hood-esque figure memorialized and popularized by Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. As a riff on the classic Manhattan, which had been invented over 10 years earlier, the Waldorf Astoria bartender swapped whiskey for the hero's home brew Scotch. And the rest was cocktail history.