Roadside Rest

Arbuckles' Coffee Won the West, and So Did Its Container

“Howdy, stranger,” exclaims the cook, beginning a familiar Western movie ritual. “Climb down off'n yore horse and have a cup o' coffee.” Stranger dismounts. Accepts offer of tin cup and goes to fire. Singes hand on coffeepot handle. Pours. Burns mouth on rim of coffee cup. Sips and grimaces. Well? How does it taste? The coffee is Arbuckles', of course. Two, three generations ago, it seemed like all coffee beyond the 100th meridian was Arbuckles'. Winchester, Colt's, Justin, Stetson, and Levi's did their parts, but Arbuckles' was The Coffee that Won the West. Then Arbuckles' lost the West, lost the East, and lost everything in between. Denney and Patricia Willis of Tucson are determined to recapture some of the old Arbuckles' territory. They are producing and distributing roasted whole beans of blended Central American coffee put up in airtight, one-pound bags. The label is a faithful replica of the once-familiar trademark: a signature and star-spangled angel. "In school I majored in history," says Denney Willis. "The all-but-forgotten saga of the Arbuckle people and their nation-building coffee seemed to cry out for a revival. Unfortunately there's nobody alive to describe how the original Arbuckles' tasted. So we've formulated a brew with a heavy body and smoky robust flavor that we believe to be authentic. Needless to say, it is not a drink for the faint of heart and the timid of palate.

ingenuity. The American fondness for coffee, born of a colonial rebellion against onerous tea taxes, grew steadily through the 1800s despite daunting problems posed by the product itself. Roasting creates flavor, but roasted beans rapidly lose essence through evaporation and deterioration of components. So up to and through the Civil War, most coffees were shipped and sold green to ensure relative freshness. Only in the largest cities were the green beans commercially roasted and rushed to the consumer. Elsewhere, small-town, rural, and migrant citizens were obliged to buy the green beans for do-it-yourself roasting in a fry pan or Dutch oven, a crucial yet tricky process, easily ruined by the burning of just one bean in a batch. Of the Pennsylvania Arbuckle brothers, Charles was the inventive genius, and in 1868 he patented a method of sealing in the goodness of oven-roasted beans. He coated the dark beans with a glaze of sugar and eggs. So treated, roasted beans retained their flavoring oils and vapors for weeks, even months. By the 1880s, the Arbuckle outfit had moved to Brooklyn and multiplied its one oven to 85, together gushing a warm, aromatic river of the brand name "Ariosa." "A" for Arbuckle; "rio" and "sa" for their South American coffee sources. Out West, Ariosa became the cherished warming cup of soldier, miner, settler. The small manila paper sacks were the right size for a pot or two; bags came 50 or 100 to a stout Maine elm box suitable for hauling in a wagon or packing on a mule.

How Arbuckles' came to Lease America's westward movement is made of equal parts of frontier craving, a perishable product, and Yankee On a dangerous trail drive, bleak ore prospect, or extended Army campaign, Ariosa might be the only morale-lifting luxury. So the temptation and tendency was to make it stout. The Western writer Edward Everett Dale averred, "The cook firmly believed there is no such thing as strong coffee but only weak people." Another Westerner, Bryan W. Brown, recalled his frontier father's recipe: "Pa claimed that in camp he would put a few cups of coffee in a sock, tie the end, and throw it into the pot. By adding water or another sock of coffee once in a while, he always had what he called 'steamboat coffee." The old-time wagon cook loved to tell the tenderfoot his favorite recipe for making cowboy coffee. With the greatest secrecy he would say, "Take two pounds of Arbuckles', put in 'nough water to wet it down, boil for two hours, and then throw in a hoss shoe. If the hoss shoe sinks, she ain't ready."

If the brew and baubles were good, the box was even greater. Especially in the wood-scarce high plateaus of Navajoland, the popularity of Hosteen Cohay, "Mr. Coffee," was rivaled by the Arbuckles' crate. Slats from coffee boxes became cradle-boards, coffins, wagon seats, trading post shelves, fences, and interior paneling. Even today the wood box for the stove at Hubbell's Trading Post National Historic Site bears the Arbuckles' brand. Which still leaves us to wonder, how did the original Arbuckles' taste?

Back to the movieland scenario. The stranger takes another mouthful of the black liquid and opines, "It is a mite heavy, too rich, and somewhat strong."

The eyes of the cook narrow as his hand eases toward his holstered six-shooter. "When you say that, mister, smile."