dutch charlie's cocktail

40% Rye Whiskey (1 1/2 oz Rittenhouse)
40% Dubonnet (1 1/2 oz)
20% Regular Vermouth (3/4 oz Noilly Prat Sweet)
2 dash Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Two Wednesdays ago, I selected the 1933 reprint of Jack's Manual and spotted the curiously named Dutch Charlie's Cocktail. The name reminded me of a Dutch Schultz drink, and it was not obvious which Dutch Charlie in history that it referred to. I became intrigued by the name for it reminded me of the nicknames of Andrea's dad's drinking buddies out in Indiana. My favorite historical one was the late 1870s gang member out in the West who ran with Big Nose George Parrott's crew; that Dutch Charlie got caught after a robbery, and, according to the True West site, "while he was being transported from Laramie to Rawlins, the train stopped to take on water [and] an angry mob stormed the railcar, took Charlie and strung him up from a telegraph pole. The lynch party figured Dutch Charlie didn't deserve to be buried in their cemetery so they carted his carcass some distance away and left him in an unmarked grave." Not very likely that author Jacob Grohusko knew about him and it was probably a drink served to a regular, but anything is possible.
There was little confusion about how this drink would turn out though for it read like a slightly inverse Manhattan with two parts Dubonnet to one part sweet vermouth. In the glass, the Dutch Charlie's Cocktail proffered rye, plum, and cherry aromas. Next, grape and plum on the sip slid into rye, dried red fruit, clove, and allspice flavors on the swallow.