Charles Cocktail

A simple but elegant brandy Manhattan variation, described in the Savoy as the only authentic Jacobite cocktail.

The Charles Cocktail is a pre-Prohibition brandy and vermouth drink that belongs to the family of stirred, spirit-forward aperitif cocktails that were fashionable in American and European bars in the decade before the First World War. The formula — cognac with sweet vermouth and Angostura bitters — is the Brandy Manhattan in its most direct form, and the Charles Cocktail appears in several golden-age guides as a named variation on this structure. Sweet vermouth, produced primarily in Turin, Italy — where Antonio Benedetto Carpano created the first commercial sweet vermouth in 1786 — and in the Savoy region of France, had established itself as the essential cocktail modifier of the late 19th century, appearing alongside spirits in the Manhattan, the Boulevardier, the Rob Roy, and dozens of other preparations. The principle connecting all of these drinks is the same: a heavy, complex spirit — brandy, bourbon, rye, or Scotch — balanced against sweet vermouth's sweetness and herbal depth, with bitters providing aromatic complexity and slight astringency. The Charles Cocktail's specific contribution to this tradition is its use of cognac's grape-distillate richness in place of grain spirit, which produces a rounder, more fruit-forward version of the Manhattan framework. The drink was championed by the craft cocktail revival as evidence that brandy's cocktail potential was as significant as its dessert reputation suggested.