While Rooster Cogburn never missed a drink, we’re not certain that he’d cotton to mixing his whiskey with cinnamon schnapps and gold flakes.
That’s more than a bit too fancy for the whiskey available in either rural Arkansas or the Indian territory that became Oklahoma.
And nobody in Charles Portis’ novel, True Grit—or any of the filmed versions—was looking for gold.
But we’ll let that pass, because Wild Turkey has created a charming Old West cocktail that assembles the ingredients—the gold, the grit, the sarsaparilla and the whiskey—into a cocktail honoring the American West.
They named this cocktail after the tough lawman in the novel:
See “True Grit,” then drink it. Photo
courtesy Wild Turkey.
THE ROOSTER
Ingredients
1-1/2 ounces Wild Turkey 101
1/2 ounces Goldschläger, cinnamon schnapps laced with gold flakes (which is a beautiful liqueur to drink straight up or mixed with vodka or blanco/plato/silver tequila, as well, with gold flakes swirling in clear liquid)
4 ounces sarsaparilla or any root beer*
Coarse salt (provides the grit)*Here’s a fun fact: From 1820 to 1910 (much of the time period covered by Charles Portis’ novel, which ends in 1928), sarsaparilla was registered in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia as a treatment for syphilis. (There is no scientific research to substantiate this claim.) Sarsaparilla is a trailing vine with prickly stems, native to Central America. Oh, and Rooster’s given name was Reuben.
