Cowboy State Daily’s 'Drinking Wyoming' is presented by Pine Bluffs Distilling
The first watering hole to be called a “saloon” was Brown’s near Brown’s Hole in what would later become Wyoming, operational all the way back to 1822.
It was sitting in what is a triangle of Bermuda proportions to an outlaw, offering easy access to whatever territory didn’t belong to the sheriff who was chasing you — Wyoming, Colorado or Utah.
Like most saloons, whiskey and beer would have been favorites. Likely with the word “old” in the name. Think Old Crow, Old Grand-Dad or Overholt Old Rye.
These names were meant to convey aging, which, in the world of whiskey, is supposed to mean quality.
Whiskey in those days did not come from bottles as depicted in a lot of old Western movies. It more often came straight from the whiskey barrel, although it was commonly cut with all sorts of questionable ingredients. Turpentine and ammonia, for example, or gunpowder and cayenne for just a little extra kick.
But there was one other thing commonly served in the saloons of old that’s not depicted in most Westerns. It’s knowledge that’s nearly been lost to lore and legend. That something was the good, old-fashioned cocktail.
Cocktails of old weren’t necessarily intended to be a fancy drink. They were thought of as medicine. Take one of the oldest of cocktails around, the Old Fashioned.
Sugar is muddled with bitters and water, and then whiskey was added, sans fruity orange slices. The remedy wasn’t served, as it is today, with a big old ice cube after dinner. It was served warm in the morning as a cure for hangovers, or sometimes with a meal, to aid digestion.
With cold and flu season in its usual full gear, that’s had the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Exclusive Tours Director, Dana Harrington thinking about old-time remedies, and what people did in the 1800s to shake off diseases.
Enter The Rusty Nail
Among the old-fashioned remedies Harrington found in her research is one called the Rusty Nail. This remedy generally didn’t start out with any alcohol and wasn’t one of those likely to be served in a saloon.
It was more of a prairie or pioneer remedy.
“They would boil rusty nails and drink the remnants — the water the nails were boiled in — to cure anemia,” Harrington said. “And that’s also why people who cooked in cast iron pans would say to never use soap. They could get like minerals from the cast iron to help with anemia.”
Anemia is a condition caused by low iron. Harrington said it was a common, but serious side effect, for survivors of diseases like typhoid fever and cholera.
No one is quite sure about the history of the alcoholic cocktail of the same name that appeared sometime in the 1930s. It’s not because it had any boiled rusty nail water in it. Harrington thinks it was because it kind of looked like the old-time cure.
“It is a fantastic cocktail, especially if you like Scotch,” mixologist Jathan Clark told Cowboy State Daily. Clark has helped design a number of cocktails for Buffalo Bill Center of the West events and is also the curatorial assistant for the Cody Firearms Museum.“
A rusty nail is two parts scotch to one part Drambuie, a liqueur that is made from Scotch whiskey. Put 2 ounces of scotch and 1 ounce of Drambuie into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into a rocks glass and serve with a single large ice cube. Add a twist of lemon if you feel fancy and toast your Wild West ancestors and their survival skills.
Teas From Native Americans
One of the concoctions that was likely to be served in saloons of the day should probably be credited to Native American knowledge.
“Sacagawea on the Lewis and Clark expedition, used a lot of native plants and things for medicinal help, to get the expedition to the Pacific and back,” Harrington said.
Among these plants was willow bark tea. Modern science has found that willow bark contains salicylic acid — the active ingredient in a tablet of aspirin.
Salicylic acid will readily dissolve from willow bark with hot water, and it’s still readily available from herbal shops, like The Hawthorn Tree, an modern-day apothecary in Cheyenne.
“They would actually serve a lot of these like teas in old bars and saloons,” Harrington said.
And it wouldn’t have been unusual to add a shot of whiskey for some extra kick to what is already a pretty good pain remedy.
Just imagine a cowboy with a toothache gulping down willow bark tea enhanced by a shot of whiskey. The whiskey adds some immediate euphoria and pain relief, giving the willow bark a little more time to kick in and do its thing.
It’s easy to imagine the cowboy thinking, “Woo! This is the best medicine ever!”
For a cocktail that attuned to modern sensibilities, Clark suggests mixing of 6 ounces of willow bark tea with 11.5 ounces of brandy and a tablespoon of simple syrup. This cocktail can be served warm.
“You can read about outdoors men and natives and fur trappers using willow bark as a pain reliever for fevers,” Clark said. “And like tucking some of the bark under their lip to suck on it, or putting it into drinks.”
A Cure For Syphilis?
One of the more popular home remedies of the day, wasn’t willow bark, however, it was called sarsaparilla, which is made from a blend of birch oil and the dried root bark of the sassafras tree.
It was thought to cure all sorts of things, ranging from eczema to things like syphilis.
“You could actually just order a sarsaparilla at a saloon,” Harrington said. “And It could have whiskey in it. It didn’t have to, but they would keep sarsaparilla tea in these saloons and taverns.”
Lots of saloons also offered sarsaparilla as a fizzy soda. Carbonated water was thought to be healthy in and of itself at the time.
The cocktail Clark suggests for sarsaparilla uses 6 ounces of tea, made by steeping 10 minutes and then chilling it in the refrigerator. Once cold, the rest of the cocktail includes a tablespoon of simple syrup, an ounce of makers mark, and an ounce of heavy cream.
“This is a really forgiving cocktail,” Clark added. “And the teas are really easy to find. We were able to find all of them online. And people can get creative with how they want to balance it, whether they want to go for sweeter or drier, or play with the viscosities a bit, to float a little bit.”
About That Gin And Tonic
One of the most classic cocktails of all time, the gin and tonic has a legitimate medicinal history.
Gin was distilled way back in the 17th century by Dutch alchemists, who figured out how to distill cheaper spirits from grain. They infused this spirit with botanicals and called it “jenever,” which literally translates to juniper. The concoction was variation of a tonic monks had made with juniper a century ago, as a medical elixir.
Gin eventually found its way to England, where it was an instant hit. Soldiers sent to The Netherlands in 1585 to support Dutch independence brought it back with them, and it was a popular alternative to French brandy. So popular, in fact, there were soon 7,000 gin shops going. The popularity — and the problems that came with drinking so much gin — soon led to acts in the 1700s to curtail the sale of gin. That led to the more refined — and more expensive — product we know and love today.
The tonic part of the popular gin and tonic cocktail traces its origins to colonial India in the 1800s. British officers stationed there were taking quinine every day, to ward off malaria.
Quinine, which comes from the bark of the cinchona tree is bitter, however, and it didn’t take long for the soldiers to figure out their daily dose of quinine would taste a lot better mixed with gin!
The cocktail is typically 1 to 3 parts gin, according to your taste, and 3 parts tonic water. Lime juice is sometimes also added, and don’t forget the obligatory slice of lime for garnish.
A couple of the old-timey herbs that pioneers of old would have used to make healing teas. The teas could be augmented with a shot of medicinal whiskey. These types of herbs are easy to source at modern apothecaries like The Hawthorn Tree. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Cinchona bark contains quinine, which helps ward off malaria, and it's what led to the classic drink, gin and tonic. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Where There's A Willow There's a Way cocktail is a hot toddy made from winter bark tea and brandy. Sweeten it to taste with simple syrup. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
A cocktail shaker with ice in it can be used to quickly cool down liquors for making a cocktail cold and refreshing. Just place six cubes of ice in the shaker, add the liquors, and shake well to mix. Then pour with a strainer into a glass with a large square or round ice cube. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
All of the drinks - Starting from left, the Rusty Nail (scotch and Drambuie), Where there's Willow There's a Way ( willowbank tea and brandy), Gin and Tonic with lime, and Revival Root (sarsaparilla tea, Makers Mark, and cream). (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
White Beaver Cream And Tarantula Juice
Of course some of the cocktails Harrington found were nothing more than snake oil, supposed to provide a benefit, but likely doing exactly the opposite.
William Swaim, for example, sold a patented American concoction he called Swaim’s Panacea, which was supposed to cure all sorts of things, ranging from syphilis to cancer. It came in a green bottle, and the ingredients included sarsaparilla, mercury chloride and, — to improve the taste — oil of wintergreen.
At $3 a bottle — quite expensive in the early 1800s — Swaim quickly became quite wealthy, and, according to historical records was worth $500,000 by 1829.
Eventually, he lowered his price to $2 a bottle, so that it would be “within reach of the indigent.”
Another of these snake oil cures was White Beavers Cough Cream, which Buffalo Bill Cody had a hand in, partnering with a Dr. Frank Powell.
The cream, like Swaim’s Panacea, came in a bottle but it was a mixture of morphine, chloroform, creosote, and alcohol at 82% — far stronger than whiskey.
“I guess that kind of stuff could make you feel better,” Harrington said. “But I don’t think it cured a thing.”
Powell met Cody in Nebraska, along with Wild Bill Hickok, and, eventually, Cody hired him as a sharpshooter for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World.
One legend has it that Powell got the nickname, White Beaver, after riding into a camp of hostile Indians to inoculate its residents against small pox. Another that he got it by rescuing a Sioux princess.
Either way, as Indian remedies were all the rage at the time, Cody decided to help Powell by investing in the manufacture White Beaver Cough Cream, which was supposed to cure the lungs.
Eventually, however, the federal Food and Drug Agency, as it was known at the time, made it a mission to shut down all of these quack remedies, and declared the product fraudulent. Powell paid a $330 fine, and all of his White Beaver Cream disappeared for good.
Another fun Buffalo Bill story Harrington likes to tell is about the wedding where Tarantula Juice was served.
“That had strychnine in it,” Harrington said. “Which is a poison. And so, when they would drink it, they would feel like stuff was crawling on them.”
Tarantula Juice was served in a lot of mining town saloons in the early 1800s, and it was also popular for weddings.
Just imagine 1,000 tarantulas crawling on your skin after getting married.
Cody evidently officiated at a wedding where Tarantula Juice was served, according to a newspaper article in the Chicago Times in 1877, one of his first weddings.
After performing the ceremony, Cody offered the happy couple some Tarantula Juice, and they all drank it as a toast.
Fortunately, it was just a sip, Harrington said. The newspaper article doesn’t mention anyone dying as a result.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
