Old fashioned cocktails

As TPP has mentioned before one of his favorite cocktails is an Old Fashioned, and he is not particularly impressed by supposed new fangled twists on this cocktail using tequila, or gin & Campari,  or other spirits.  When you drastically change the basic ingredients the drink actually becomes something else, call it what you will, but an Old Fashioned is made with bourbon.  Would you take a tomato soup recipe, leave out the tomatos, substitute some other fruit, and then still call it tomato soup?  Would you change the beef to chicken and still call it beef stew?  The thing about an old fashioned Old Fashion is its utter simplicity.  The best Old Fashioned TPP was ever served in a bar or restaurant was at the Girl and the Goat in Chi-town.  They made two minor, but excellent changes to the recipe; they used orange bitters and rubbed the rim of the glass with a strip of orange peel rather than muddling the fruit.  Being a bit hard core, and not liking things overly sweet, TPP suggests you try one without the sugar or simple syrup.  A dash of club soda is a waste of time and water, and although colorful, maraschino cherries are nothing but a sweet, red-dyed zombies of the former fruit.  Nothing is left except the "skeleton" of the cherry.  Creepy!  The cocktail craze is actually rather a refreshing trend of late, and Mrs. Phactor is having fun trying various recipes to find drinks to her taste.  The latest involved muddled tangerine and campari.  It was not to my taste at all.  Perhaps she'll share some of the better recipes.  Check the comments after this post for the recipe for very nice Aperol cocktail, or reading on, its Campari counterpart.