An old Victorian trick for making the eyes brighter and whiter was to drip cologne into them. This wasn't as bad of an idea as it sounds in modern times -- many modern eyedrops are still made from alcohol and can even include herbal extracts (example: my favorite brand of eyedrops include mint in them.)
Another trick for those not so brave as to pour perfume right into their eyeballs was to eat a little cologne and whiskey on a piece of sugar. This again was not a bad idea at the time -- alcohol based perfumes are nowadays made with denatured alcohol, but not so in Victorian times. They made perfume of the same stuff as your cocktail -- spirits of wine were an especially popular base for fragrances.
I decided to give a try to the sugar trick. Since, as just mentioned, most modern cologne uses denatured alcohol, I didn't really want to attempt drinking it. I had some homemade Bay Rum, though, that I know for a fact didn't contain anything that didn't come out of my kitchen, so I decided to try some of that. On 1/2 tsp sugar I poured 6 drops each of this Bay Rum and some Evan Williams Bourbon (since 1790!) onto it, and awaited the results. The flavor of this mixture was not exactly tasty, but with the added sugar, wasn't awful either.
And I was tired of waiting for results after 10 minutes. A problem is that the recipes for this trick never actually say how long you are supposed to wait to see results.
One thing that did strike me though, was that a lot of the US alcoholic drinks have been made weaker post-prohibition (80 proof being standard today -- in the 19th century about 116 was more usual.) The instructed 12 drops of liquor might have actually been rather weaker alcoholically than what the recipe writer intended.
I'd stick with the Rohto eyedrops, myself.
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