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Roy Rogers

Cola and grenadine with a maraschino cherry — the cola-based sibling to a Shirley Temple.

Difficulty
easy
Prep time
3 min
Strength
Alcohol-free
Glassware
Highball glass
Base
alcohol free
Serves
1

Related drinks

Ingredients

  • Cola
    200ml
  • Grenadine

    Poured last so it settles

    15ml
  • Maraschino cherry

    One in the glass, extra for garnish

Garnish: Maraschino cherry

Scale for a party

Method

  1. Fill a highball glass with ice.
  2. Pour in the cola.
  3. Add the grenadine slowly, pouring down the side of the glass or over a bar spoon so it sinks toward the bottom.
  4. Drop in a maraschino cherry and let the drink settle for a moment before serving.

Equipment

Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.

  • Bar spoon

    Household swap: Any long-handled spoon works, or pour slowly down a table knife held against the glass.

Missing an ingredient?

Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.

  • Instead of Cola

    Best substitute: Ginger Ale

    This is the base in this drink.

    Flavour impact: Produces a Shirley Temple instead — lighter, spicier and less cola-sweet.

    What changes

    Expect less sweetness and less bitterness. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.

    Sweetness ↓
    Less sweetness leaves the acid and the spirit more exposed, so the drink will taste sharper and drier than it should.
    Bitterness ↓
    Losing bitterness makes the drink rounder and more approachable, and takes away the structure that stopped it tasting like squash.
    Character
    Both are sweet and fizzy, and you lose caramel and spiced, and you gain mildly spicy and light. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.

    To correct for it

    • Add a little more syrup, a small amount at a time, until the edges come back together.
    • A dash of bitters restores some of the backbone without changing anything else.
    High confidenceNot really a substitution so much as switching to the established sibling recipe.Shifts the drinkBecomes a variation

Want to change something these swaps do not cover — too sweet, too thin, a herb you dislike? How to adjust any mocktail works by what each component does rather than by ingredient name.

Make it better

  • Pour the grenadine slowly and low — pouring it in fast just mixes it straight into the cola instead of settling.
  • Chill the glass and cola beforehand so you don't need extra ice, which dilutes it fast.
  • Add the carbonated mixer last, after shaking or stirring the rest, and pour gently to keep as much fizz as possible.
  • Adjust sweetness gradually and taste as you go — it's easy to add more syrup, impossible to take it out.

Rescue this drink

Too sweet
Reduce the grenadine to 10ml.
Colours look muddy instead of layered
Pour the grenadine more slowly, low over a spoon, rather than dropping it straight in.
Flat or lost its fizzgeneral guidance
Top with a fresh carbonated mixer just before serving. Carbonation can't be restored by shaking or stirring once it's gone — build it in at the last step.
Served too warmgeneral guidance
Chill the glass, ice and every ingredient ahead of time — a warm pour is the fastest way to lose a cold drink's balance. For one serving, there's no real fix beyond rebuilding it properly chilled; for a batch, keep everything refrigerated until the moment of serving and add ice last.

Make ahead & storage

Batch the base, finish at serving

Batch the 2 stable components days ahead and add cola when you pour.

Cola:
Carbonated — it goes flat in a bottle, and there is no way to put the fizz back.

What it tastes like

The taste, and what drives it

very sweet, soft, very light, sparkling — a long and lengthened drink served over ice.

Very sweet

Dry → Sweet

A sweet drink by design — the sugar is a feature, not a fault.

What drives it: Cola — carries the most sugar into the glass.

Faintly bitter

Gentle → Bitter

A bitter edge you would only notice if you looked for it.

What drives it: Cola — provides the bitterness.

Very light

Light → Rich

Almost weightless in the mouth — closer to a long soft drink than to a sipper.

What drives it: Cola — adds most of the weight.

Very sparkling

Still → Sparkling

Carbonated, which lifts the aromatics and makes the drink taste drier than its sugar content alone would suggest.

What drives it: Cola — carries the carbonation.

Delicate

Delicate → Bold

Delicate. Rewards attention rather than demanding it.

What drives it: Cola — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.

What you smell first

  • Caramel and molassesLeads

    From Cola

  • Baking spiceLeads

    From Cola

Every aroma here comes from the liquid itself; nothing is layered on top.

How it was worked out

Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. About 78% of this drink by volume has detailed ingredient data behind it; the rest falls back to broader category rules.

How balance actually works →

If it isn't right

What goes wrong with this drink, and why

Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — each with the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.

The fizz is the last thing in, and the first thing lost

Worth knowing

Carbonation escapes to warmth, agitation and anything it can cling to — pulp, sugar crystals, a dry glass wall.

How to handle it: Chill the mixer hard, pour it against the inside of the glass, add it last, and stir once at most.

  • It's too sweet

    Likely cause
    Cola is carrying the sugar here, and it is the easiest thing in the drink to over-pour — syrup clings to a jigger and a "splash" is rarely the same twice.
    What to change
    Cut cola by about a third and rebuild. If it is already made, a squeeze of citrus is faster than starting again.
    What that does
    It will taste drier and slightly thinner — sugar carries body as well as sweetness, so you lose a little weight along with it.

  • It tastes weak

    Likely cause
    With no alcohol to carry flavour and no heat to cut through, an alcohol-free drink has to work harder for the same presence — thinness here is almost never a measuring error.
    What to change
    Add acidity or bitterness rather than more fruit. Sweetness is what is usually already too high in a thin mocktail.
    What that does
    The drink gains definition without gaining sugar. It will also read as slightly sharper, which is what 'more presence' usually means in practice.

  • It's gone flat

    Likely cause
    Cola loses gas to warmth, to agitation and to anything it can nucleate against — pulp, sugar crystals, a dry glass.
    What to change
    Chill the mixer properly, add it last, pour it against the inside wall of the glass, and stir once at most.
    What that does
    The bubbles last, which also makes the drink taste drier — carbonation contributes a real acidity of its own on top of the lift.

  • It doesn't smell of anything

    Likely cause
    This drink's aroma comes from caramel and molasses and baking spice, carried in the liquid. Serving it too cold suppresses that: volatile compounds do not leave a very cold drink.
    What to change
    Let it sit for a minute before drinking, and use a glass that narrows towards the rim to concentrate what does escape.
    What that does
    More of the aroma escapes and the drink reads as more intense. The cost is temperature: a drink left to warm also dilutes faster, so this is a trade against how long it stays right.

  • It tastes one-dimensional

    Likely cause
    With 3 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a long and lengthened drink is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
    What to change
    Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
    What that does
    More going on at the same strength and sweetness. Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one.

Taste profile

Sweetness
4/5
Sourness
0/5
Bitterness
1/5
Strength
0/5
Fruitiness
2/5
Freshness
2/5
Creaminess
0/5
Smokiness
0/5

Nutrition & alcohol

Estimate onlyEstimated from standard cola and grenadine sugar content.
Calories
160 kcal
Sugar
38 g
Carbohydrates
40 g
Alcohol units (UK)
0
US standard drinks
0
ABV
0%
Serving size
240 ml
Show calculation assumptions

Source: Calculated from standard measures

Calorie breakdown: ~0 kcal from alcohol, ~160 kcal from sugar and mixers.

Likely range: 120–200 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.

Assumes 200ml regular (non-diet) cola and 15ml grenadine.

These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.

Variations

  • Shirley Temple

    The ginger-ale-based sibling — swap the cola for ginger ale.

What kind of drink this is

The structure behind the recipe

A built build: a long and lengthened alcohol-free drink, served over ice — sparkling in the mouth.

Long and lengthened

A short measure stretched with a mixer or juice — the drink's length, not its concentration, is the point of it.

  • Base

    Cola

  • Modifier

    Grenadine

  • Garnish

    Maraschino cherry

    Listed as a garnish ingredient.

Drinks built this way are collected as the Highball family.

One component's role isworked out from the ingredient's category and recorded taste attributes rather than set by hand — the reasoning is shown above so you can disagree with it.

Technique

built

Components are poured into the serving glass over ice and stirred once, or not at all. Dilution happens while you drink rather than before.

The drink changes as you go: strongest at the first sip, longest and most diluted at the last. That drift is a feature of a long drink and a fault in a short one.

What it ruins: Nothing, but it cannot properly combine anything viscous — a syrup poured last will sit at the bottom.

Everything about building in the glass →How the technique works →

Dilution

In the glass, as you drink

Water from ice typically makes up around 15% of the finished drink for a built build (commonly 10–20%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.

Why dilution is an ingredient →

Served

Over ice

Highball glass · 240ml

Served on ice, so it keeps chilling in the glass. A larger, colder, slower drink than the same spirits served straight up.

Texture and aroma

Sparkling

Carbonation lifts aromatics and adds a slight acidity of its own, which is why a long drink can taste drier than its sugar content suggests.

No dedicated aromatic component — what you smell is the spirit itself, which is a deliberate choice in a drink this spare.

Where to go from here

Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.

Where it comes from

Origin and family

Origin of the Roy Rogers

American mocktail named after cowboy film star Roy Rogers, understood as the cola-based sibling to the Shirley Temple.

Family

Highball

1 part spirit · 2–4 parts mixer — built in the glass over a full load of ice.

On drinks history

Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.

History and culture →

Try this next

Questions people ask

What is the difference between a Roy Rogers and a Shirley Temple?
The mixer. A Roy Rogers is cola and grenadine, a Shirley Temple is ginger ale and grenadine. Both carry a maraschino cherry, and they are linked to each other from this page.
Why did the grenadine mix straight in?
It was poured too fast. The tips above say to pour slowly and low so it settles rather than dispersing — "Colours look muddy instead of layered" covers the fix.
How do I stop it from getting watery?
Chill the glass and the cola beforehand, as the tips above describe, so you need less ice to begin with.

Use up your ingredients

Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.

Related tools

Scale this for a party

Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.

Recipe confidence

Long-standing, well-documented mocktail with a consistent, simple format.

High confidence