👍🏻 

Saveur and Imbibe both suggest rye, and I'd agree, to dry things out a little. Using Punt e mes as the vermouth also helps.

swapped in rye and added dash of el guapo chicory bitters. delish

Curated this - as posted it was 2 Bourbon, 3/4 sweet vermouth, 1/4 each Amer Picon and Benedictine. Ensslin has it as an equal parts drink with 2 dashes each Amer Picon and Benedictine. I'd call 4 dashes about a barspoon. While Rye is probably the way to go here, I think the Benedictine probably has enough herbal accord to mimic rye if you want to use Bourbon. Thanks,  Zachary

So after curating this last night, I made one with Knob Creek Rye and CAF and homemade Amer Boudreau (which is rather strong). The measurements in that Ensslin book are all messed up. He sets a pony equal to a jigger where normally there's a half ounce difference between the two. Then, a jigger is 1/4 of a whiskey glass and a drink is 1/2 of a whiskey glass. I mean, come on man. So a drink is either 2 or 3 ounces depending on which way you interpret things. My read on the drink is that it's meant to be a "fancy" Manhattan, modified by the Amer Picon and Benedictine. But at a 3 ounce drink, the modifiers are hard to distinguish. My feeling is that either this really should be a 2 ounce drink rather than a 3 ounce one. And there should be barely enough modifier to tell they're there. My guess is 1 ounce of each and 1/8 oz (eyeballed into a 1/4 oz measure) of each modifier. Thanks (sorry for the long note),  Zachary

Nice flavors, but still a tad too sweet at these ratios. Bitters improve it admirably.

That's the problem with many vintage cocktails -- they are simply formulated too sweet for today. The quality of our spirits doesn't require as much sugar may be one factor. I would think you could easily dial the cherry back to 1/2. It might let the cognac through a bit more. I need to try this.

1 1/2 Cognac VSOP
1/2 oz Luxardo Cherry Sangue Morlacco
1 oz Martini Extra Dry
Not bad, Cognac is on front.

Alaska improved with dry vermouth, very nice. I've seen this on a menu with Dolin Blanc for Dry Vermouth, under the name "Vandelay Industries" which comes off a bit too sweet still.

Swapped Chartreuse for Strega and double it.

Curated to correct name of original reference text, publisher, and year (1900 vs. 1926). Author not listed, but a 2009 recipe/discussion of the cocktail on Frederic Yarm's site indicates Fredrick L. Knowles was the author. I also corrected a substantial error in the recipe: rather than 1/2 barspoon of yellow Chartreuse it actually lists "one spoonful". Since modern bar spoon sizes vary and are often short or very short of a teaspoon, a half barspoon would be far too little, likely less than half the minimum correct recipe. I am listing this as 1 teaspoon. Teaspoonful and tablespoonful are listed many places in the book (primarily for sugar), "small spoonful" is listed once and "spoonful" alone is listed only in this cocktail--regrettably ambiguous. Tablespoon is unlikely as it would be more likely listed as "one-third" since ~two ounce cocktails were common. Also corrected ratio of gin to vermouth to 2:1, by upping vermouth to 3/4 oz.

Tested the corrected recipe using Plymouth gin, Noilly Prat Original Dry (not extra-dry that is now the norm in the U.S. market), Yellow Chartreuse and Bitter Truth orange bitters. Balanced, yet complex for an otherwise drier cocktail. Herbal mint/alpine/juniper/anise along with bitter orange, and alcohol heat. Noilly original provides good white wine flavor and body underneath, and moderate wormwood bite to the finish.

1 2/3 oz gin, 1/2 oz dry vermouth, 1/3 ozx Yellow Chartreuse, 1-2 ds Orange bitter.

Clarified bitters to be Bitter Truth Aromatic.