Will Rogers

A refreshing citrus cocktail named after the beloved American humorist, featuring gin, vermouth, and orange juice.

The Will Rogers Cocktail is a mid-century tribute to William Penn Adair Rogers, born November 4, 1879 near Claremore in the Cherokee Nation of Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), who became one of the most beloved public figures in American life during the 1920s and 1930s. Rogers was of partial Cherokee descent and used rope tricks, humor, and a persona of rustic wisdom to build a career that spanned vaudeville, Broadway (the Ziegfeld Follies from 1916 to 1925), radio, film, and newspaper syndication. His newspaper column, syndicated to 600 papers by the early 1930s, reached an estimated 40 million readers; his radio broadcasts attracted comparable audiences. Rogers was the highest-paid Hollywood actor of 1934 by some accounts. He died on August 15, 1935 in a plane crash near Point Barrow in northern Alaska while on a sightseeing flight with aviator Wiley Post — a death that generated national mourning comparable to that for a sitting president. Several cocktails were named for him in the years following, and the Will Rogers Cocktail — gin, dry vermouth, orange juice, and triple sec — reflects the formula of broadly accessible, citrus-forward gin drinks that were fashionable in the American bars of his era.