A Nameless Campari Cocktail--"Once Upon a Time in the (Old South)West"

So we were invited to a party, a kind of high-end potluck that involved dramatic food creations by a variety of amateur foodies. And as usual, the email that came to me was ignored too long, until my pleading partner provoked me to reply. With virtually everything already selected, I promised to make the cocktails. No problem, I figured, with but a week to go. I have a half dozen crowd pleasers in my repertoire.

Or I could come up with one. I was harboring at the time a deep longing for Campari, which was absent from my cabinet and had been for some time. Why not make a Campari cocktail? Were there not a hundred easy variations on the Negroni? No problem.

But, of course, the eternal war between reason and experimentation raged in my brain. Reason always loses, and so I began mixing up various concoctions, trying to come up with some kind of Campari cocktail that would break the mold a little. But after a week, virtually nothing had come to mind.

But the best spur for invention is last-minute panic. Countless artists would  attest to the power of deadlines to inspire creation, although one might legitimately wonder how often this might result in genius rather than simply desperation. Given the difficulties involved in any act of creation, I suspect that genius is elusive enough to defy systematic analysis as to its prompts, let alone causes. But I digress. The point is that at the last minute, I mixed together the following:

1 part Campari
1 part lemon juice
1 part tonic syrup (lemongrass and cloves)
1 part sugar syrup
2 parts gin
club soda
garnish: lemon peel

It worked brilliantly. A bitter apértif balanced upon a fresh citrus sour mix. Sophisticated and playful, as if Renee Fleming chose to attend the party in a pink fur coat.

I was nonetheless apprehensive, and took several bottles of liqueurs to fall back on (Aviation, anyone?). But in the end, I shook up nearly 2 cocktails for everyone. It was a hit, and I was spared the embarrassment that comes from bringing the one dish no one touches.