Division Bell
The Division Bell is Phil Ward's mezcal answer to the Last Word, built at Mayahuel in 2009 and named for the Pink Floyd album: mezcal, Aperol, maraschino and lime, with the mezcal pushed slightly forward of true equal parts. It arrived two years before the Naked and Famous finished the same thought, and to its partisans it is the better drink. The maraschino is what separates them. Where the Naked and Famous runs honeyed through yellow Chartreuse, the Division Bell runs dry: the cherry liqueur's funk and almond sit against the smoke while Aperol keeps the middle gentle and orange. It lands leaner and stranger, a Last Word that traded the monastery for the mezcaleria. Taken side by side the two make the cleanest comparison in modern agave drinking. Same skeleton, one substitution, entirely different weather, and a room that will reliably split down the middle about which one it prefers.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Grapefruit Twist expressed and discarded
Ingredients
30ml
The lead voice, pushed slightly forward of true equal parts so the smoke has room to speak. An espadín you would happily drink neat is the right call.
22.5ml
The gentle middle. Its bitter orange smooths the seam between smoke and cherry funk, and it is the only element in the glass doing any softening.
22.5ml
The swap that separates this from the Naked and Famous: dry cherry-and-almond funk where the Chartreuse honey would sit, making this the leaner and stranger sibling.
22.5ml
The acid frame the whole equal-parts family is built on. Fresh only; bottled lime turns the maraschino's almond note metallic and flattens the smoke.
Instructions
Add the mezcal, Aperol, maraschino and lime juice to a shaker with ice.
Shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into a chilled coupe.
Express the grapefruit twist over the surface and discard it.
Expert Tip
Express the grapefruit twist and throw it away. Its oils bridge the Aperol's orange and the mezcal's smoke, and the drink misses them far more than it would miss a garnish sitting in the glass. Leaving the peel in adds pith bitterness to a drink that already has bitterness covered. Use a mezcal you would drink neat, and preferably an espadín at around 45%. The smoke is a lead voice here rather than a seasoning, and a thin, aggressively smoky bottle tastes like a bonfire against the cherry. Shake it hard and double strain. There is lime in it, so it is a sour by structure, and a lazy shake leaves the drink underdiluted and hot. Twelve seconds against good ice, then through a fine strainer, so what reaches the coupe is clean.
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
Mayahuel was Phil Ward's agave bar on East Sixth Street in New York, opened in 2009 after his years at Death & Co. It was dedicated almost entirely to tequila and mezcal at a moment when neither had much of a cocktail literature, and a good deal of that literature got written there.
The Division Bell was among its founding drinks: the Last Word's equal-parts template rebuilt in the house language, and named for the Pink Floyd album. Ward's other well-known agave build, the Oaxaca Old Fashioned, came out of the same period of thinking. The Division Bell travelled more quietly than its 2011 cousin, but it never left the lists of bartenders who know the family tree.
Against the Naked and Famous
One substitution separates the two drinks: maraschino here, yellow Chartreuse there, with the mezcal nudged up in this spec. Everything else is the same architecture.
The difference in the glass is much larger than one ingredient suggests. Chartreuse brings honey, saffron and a long herbal sweetness, and it rounds the smoke off. Maraschino brings dry cherry, almond and a faintly funky perfume, and it sharpens the smoke instead. The Chartreuse version is generous and easy to like. The maraschino version is angular and takes a moment.
Tasting them in sequence is the cleanest comparison in modern mezcal drinking, and preferences split a room reliably enough to be worth arranging on purpose.
The Maraschino
Real maraschino, whether Luxardo, Maraska or similar, is not a sweet cherry liqueur, whatever the colour of the label suggests. It is distilled from whole marasca cherries including the stones, which is where the almond note comes from, and it reads dry and slightly funky rather than fruity.
That perfume is the drink's signature, and it is the same quiet work the bottle does in the Last Word and the Hemingway Daiquiri. twenty-two and a half millilitres is the largest role mezcal allows it anywhere in the canon, and the pairing turns out to be one of the better accidents in modern mixing.
Why the Mezcal Is Pushed Forward
True equal parts would give thirty of each, and the Last Word's own arithmetic argues for it. This spec gives the mezcal thirty against twenty-two of everything else, and the difference is deliberate.
Maraschino is loud out of all proportion to its volume, and Aperol carries sugar as well as bitterness. At strict equal parts the smoke ends up as one voice among three rather than the thing the drink is about, and what you get is a pleasant bitter-cherry sour that happens to contain mezcal. Eight millilitres is all it takes to put the agave back in front.
How to Serve It
Cold, up in a coupe, twist expressed and gone. The drink wears no decoration, in the family tradition, and it looks like nothing much in the glass: a pale, cloudy amber that gives away none of what is in it.
Serve it after the Naked and Famous rather than before. The honeyed version first makes the dry one taste like a correction; the dry one first makes the honeyed one taste like a compromise, which is unfair to a very good drink. Then let the room divide, which it will.
The Spirit
MezcalAgave spirit from Mexico, cooked in earth pits over hot rocks, which is where the smoke comes from. The smoke is a consequence of the cooking method rather than a quality of the plant, and that distinction explains most of what separates it from tequila.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference from a Naked and Famous?
One ingredient: maraschino liqueur in place of yellow Chartreuse, with the mezcal nudged slightly forward here. The Chartreuse version is honeyed and round, this one is dry, funky and more angular. Same equal-parts architecture, entirely different weather in the glass.
Who created the Division Bell?
Phil Ward, at Mayahuel in New York, in 2009. It was one of the founding drinks at his agave-dedicated bar, built on the Last Word's template and named for the Pink Floyd album, two years before the Naked and Famous completed the family.
Why discard the grapefruit twist?
Its oils are wanted and its body is not. Expressed over the surface, the peel bridges the Aperol's orange and the mezcal's smoke; left in the glass it adds pith bitterness to a drink that has bitterness covered, and breaks the family's undecorated look.
What mezcal should I use?
An espadín at around 45% that you would be happy drinking neat. The smoke is a lead voice rather than a seasoning here, so a thin or aggressively smoky bottle tastes like a bonfire against the cherry, and a very expensive one is wasted under three other ingredients.
Master the Techniques
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Naked and Famous
The Naked and Famous is a modern classic with a full pedigree on file. Joaquín Simó created it at Death & Co in 2011 and described it himself as the bastard love child of the Last Word and the Paper Plane, conceived in the mountains of Oaxaca. Equal parts mezcal, yellow Chartreuse, Aperol and lime: four loud ingredients at 22.5ml each, agreeing perfectly. It is the equal-parts formula’s smoky graduation. The Last Word proved four equal parts could balance, the Paper Plane translated the trick to whiskey and amaro, and this walks it into the mezcal age: smoke against honeyed Chartreuse, Aperol’s gentle bitterness bridging between them, lime holding the whole thing upright. No single ingredient leads, which with these four is the entire achievement. It has become the standard second mezcal drink, after an Oaxaca Old Fashioned has made the introduction: brighter, stranger and more talkative, and the fastest proof that smoke belongs in the sour family.
Last Word
The Last Word is one of the great equal-parts cocktails: gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and fresh lime juice in identical measures, shaken and served up. No component leads and no component follows. Each of the four is assertive enough to dominate a lesser recipe, and the fact that none dominates this one is the drink’s central achievement. It originated at the Detroit Athletic Club around 1915, documented by Ted Saucier in his 1951 book Bottoms Up and attributed to vaudeville performer Frank Fogarty, who allegedly introduced it to the club. It disappeared almost entirely during and after Prohibition and was rediscovered in the early 2000s by Seattle bartender Murray Stenson, who found it in Saucier’s book and put it on the menu at the Zig Zag Café. From there it spread through the craft cocktail world and has not left. The revival was deserved. Green Chartreuse brings herbal intensity, maraschino brings cherry sweetness and a faint bitter almond note, fresh lime brings tartness, and gin holds it together. Each sip reveals a different component leading depending on where in the glass you are. It is a drink worth paying attention to.
Paper Plane
The Paper Plane was created by Sam Ross at Milk & Honey in New York around 2007 and named after the M.I.A. song that was playing while he developed it. It is an equal-parts build of bourbon, Aperol, Amaro Nonino and fresh lemon juice, shaken and served cold, and it stands as one of the most precisely constructed modern classics in the canon. Equal parts is an unforgiving format. Every ingredient is fully exposed at the same volume, and a weak choice in any one of them changes the character of the finished drink in a way no adjustment elsewhere can correct. The bourbon provides warmth and vanilla. The Aperol provides bitter orange and a lightness that stops the drink turning heavy. The Nonino provides herbal complexity and a mid-palate depth neither of the others could contribute. The lemon holds all three together. Substituting a cheaper amaro for Nonino is the most common mistake made with this recipe, and the one that most visibly changes the result.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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