If you know me, you know I like bourbon. If you know I like bourbon, you can guess I love an Old Fashioned. (I do.)

It’s one of the few cocktails I’ll make on the regular, partly because they’re so damn easy. And you get a lot of bang for a small-effort buck.

It never occurred to me to make one with something other than brown liquor. It certainly never would have crossed my mind to use gin.

Gin is mostly for fizzes and tonic and martinis, no? Apparently not.

I decided to focus on Campari this time around as I have two bottles (one mostly finished, in my defence) and one yet to be cracked. I keep them on hand for Boulevardiers and Negronis, but wanted to see what else this bittersweet, beautifully coloured liquor could do.

I actually stumbled on this one for a Campari-Gin Old Fashioned last week but was missing an orange and didn’t want to make any substitutions since I had an inkling this needed all the right bits to make for a balanced cocktail. It was at the top of my grocery list this week.

It’s a quick and straightforward cocktail but has lovely depth of flavour. I like how the sugar and orange lifts the bitter of the campari and plays up the flavours in the gin. I went with Eau Claire Distillery’s Flourish and it was a perfect match.

The result is a highly sippable, sweet, bitter, fruity drink that I think really exemplifies something being greater than the sum of it’s parts — Hi, Gestalt! Thank you, Grade 12 psychology.

And while I suspect it would be good at any time in the year, I feel this will be a dangerously delightful addition to drinking on my balcony this summer.

(Aside: the original recipe called for a splash of soda water, but I didn’t think that would benefit the drink at all — just water it down. So I skipped it. And I have zero regrets.)

Campari-Gin Old Fashioned

• a sugar cube
• 1 piece of orange peel
• 1/2 ounce Campari
• 2 ounces dry gin
• ice

In a rocks glass, muddle together the sugar cube, orange peel and Campari until the sugar has mostly dissolved.

Add the gin and stir to combine. Add ice and stir until chilled.