John Wayne's On-Set Coffee Ritual Inspired A Brew All Its Own

There's something irresistible about learning the favorite foods of old Hollywood icons. Since they're not here showing off their meals on Instagram, it feels like a rare treat to find out that Marilyn Monroe loved to make a special stuffing or that Clark Gable enjoyed pancakes with sausage. What's especially exciting is when one of these stars' favorites lives on or inspires a product available to everyone. For example, John Wayne's son founded Duke Spirits bourbon to honor his father's love of whiskey, so now you can imbibe like "the Duke" would have. Speaking of Wayne, there's now another type of drink you can enjoy as a hat tip to the silver screen's ultimate cowboy: coffee.

Meet Gold Handle Coffee, a brand launched by the John Wayne licensing parent company under which Duke Spirits also operates. The company name reveals a sweet habit of Wayne's, which was to gift the cast and crew of every movie he made with mugs. These mugs had golden handles and were stamped with the name of the movie plus a personal inscription. Today, these rarities fetch tens of thousands of dollars at auction, but you can participate in Wayne's coffee ritual with Gold Handle Coffee.

Gold Handle Coffee once had a coffee shop in Fort Worth, Texas, but sadly, it's now closed. However, you can still shop the brand online. There are light, medium, and dark roasts for $16 each, an organic medium roast, an espresso roast, and a decaf roast at $18 each. Each bag offers whole beans, weighing in at 12 ounces. Utilizing 100% Arabica beans, Gold Handle is headlined by Tim Coonan, a former executive chef who also has own popular coffee shop chain in Chicago, Big Shoulders. So, you know you're getting good coffee, coffee that Wayne himself would have considered worthy of filling his prized mugs.

This isn't the only reference to the Duke in the world of java. The currently closed Black Rifle Coffee Company showed off their recipe for "The John Wayne," a coffee drink the brand shared on its YouTube page made up of espresso, half and half, and vanilla syrup. To really double down on your Duke homage, make a "John Wayne" with Gold Handle coffee beans. You can even triple down on the Wayne brand by enjoying the drink while watching "Rio Bravo" or "The Comancheros," and quadruple down by enjoying it with the comforting John Wayne breakfast casserole. Of course, the final step if you want to take this coffee beverage into the evening is to add just a hint of bourbon, or even make a Duke-ified spirit by infusing bourbon with whole beans of Gold Handle coffee.