The Old Fashioned is as classic as cocktails get, and the Liquor.com take is can’t-miss. If you’re more into the fruit-muddling version (as I am), try the Difford’s Guide recipe.

I’ve always been a tinkerer, though. So here, for your summer sipping enjoyment, is the Doc Variant:

Ingredients

• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 6 (or more) dashes Angostura bitters
• 2 dashes of orange bitters (because why not?)
• 2 shots bourbon (something craft, not mass-produced; right now I’m on a very tasty Breckenridge kick)
• ½ shot of orange liqueur (once I would have recommended Cointreau here, and I still love it with all my heart; but a few weeks ago I discovered Solerno blood orange, and just damn. So try that – I think you’ll like it)
• Orange slice
• Garnish: orange peel

Steps

1. Put a fresh slice of orange and two maraschino cherries in a rocks glass along with a half-teaspoon of cane sugar. Muddle the heck out of it.
2. Add the angostura and orange bitters. NOTE: I’m a bitters freak. If you aren’t, then you may want to stick with the three dashes of angostura recommended in the Liquor.com recipe.
3. Fill the glass with ice cubes, add the bourbon and orange liqueur, and stir.
4. Express the oil of an orange peel over the glass, run the rim with it, then drop in. Add another maraschino cherry or two.

And finally, take it out on the porch and think about all the poor peasants drinking Jack and Coke and wishing they were you.