chauncey

1/4 Tom Gin (3/4 oz Hayman's Old Tom Gin)
1/4 Whiskey (3/4 oz Eagle Rare Bourbon)
1/4 Sweet Vermouth (3/4 oz Dolin)
1/4 Brandy (3/4 oz Courvoisier)
1 dash Orange Bitters (Angostura Orange)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. No garnish was specified but I added a Luxardo Marasca cherry.

On Saturday night, we stayed in and made cocktails. To follow up the more modern Alto Cucina that Andrea made, I cracked out the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book to search for a drink to try out our new bottle of Dolin Sweet Vermouth and to kill off the last of a cognac bottle to make room on the shelf for its replacement. I found the recipe for the Chauncey to satisfy both requirements. Other than the drink being pre-Prohibition era, the book could not provide any more information or narrow down who was the Chauncey of the cocktail save for the speculation that it "must have been named after the most distinguished person of that prenomen, a famous orator and wit".

The drink itself smelled rather floral which we attributed to the Dolin vermouth; Andrea thought that it was almost a geranium scent. It was rather difficult to decipher one alcohol from another except for the gin due to the botanicals. The orange bitters, however, did stand out and worked rather well with the citrus peel flavors in the vermouth. The Chauncey was very much like a Saratoga Cocktail with the addition of gin and the swapping of aromatic bitters for orange ones. Like the Saratoga, the drink was rather boozy, and Andrea commented that it was indeed "a manly drink" (which is funny since she enjoys drinking whiskeys neat more than I do).