I’m currently reading MFK Fisher’s Gastronomical Me and she mentions the Ohio on her 1935 Atlantic Crossing on the Hansa, a German ship.
The favorite cocktail was called an Ohio. It was drunk at any time of the day or night from double-sized champagne glasses which must have held ten or twelve ounces of the mixture, and were rimmed heavily with sugar.
I knew the formula, from watching the barman make so many, but I forget everything now except that it was coarse, stupid and fantastic, like the men who drank it. There were two or three cherries in each glass, and several kinds of alcohol: brandy, gin, cordials. Champagne was used as a filler.
I never tasted one, but the barman, who spent what spare time he had in practicing elaborate scroll-writing under the top of the bar, told me they were very sweet. He said I wouldn’t like them.
I didn’t like the way they made people act, certainly, and after one nightcap in the bar I was always glad to go to my cabin.