This is just great! I found it rather rich, but man is it moreish... I used 100% pure cranberry juice (which I keep on hand for my cosmopolitans, too - I like to adjust the sugar myself) and found that a mere 2.5 ml of sugar syrup was enough for a perfectly balanced cocktail. This is definitely going in my permanent rotation!

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I can confirm that using Earl-Grey-infused syrup rather than gin also makes for a delicious cocktail. I feel there is also less risk of over-infusion - or at the very least, it's less of a waste if you just ruin a bit of syrup, and not 2 ounces of good gin.

Huh! A nearly identical cocktail, with lime juice in lieu of lemon, seems to be known as the "Churchill" cocktail or "Churchill Manhattan" – interestingly, no mention of either is to be found on your site!
At a bar in my home town, they served it on the rocks (and under a cloche filled with cigar smoke in a tribute to its namesake), but serving it up seems the norm. I make it with rye for a bit more sharpness, and I find that bianco vermouth makes for a nicer color in combination with the lime.

Wow, thank you, Simon – mystery solved, and the info on Joe's page is definitely a bonus!

Huh! A nearly identical cocktail, with lime juice in lieu of lemon, seems to be known as the "Churchill" cocktail or "Churchill Manhattan" – interestingly, no mention of either is to be found on your site!
At a bar in my home town, they served it on the rocks (and under a cloche filled with cigar smoke in a tribute to its namesake), but serving it up seems the norm. I make it with rye for a bit more sharpness, and I find that bianco vermouth makes for a nicer color in combination with the lime.

ive gone down the 30/30/30 route.

mr blacks instead of kahlua. kahlua has more sweetness in it so I add a dash of demerara sugar syrup .

also partial to a dash of Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Extract .

The equal parts recipe works better with Mr Black (incidentally my favourite coffee liqueur by far) as Mr Black is very low in sugar, very coffee-forward, and vodka-based - so the recipe above ends up with a bit too much vodka, too little liqueur, so to speak. BUT the touch of salt and lemon oils really make a difference and I do use this trick in my equal-parts Mr. Black espresso martinis as well.