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.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: None traditionally
Ingredients
22.5ml
The passport among four equal voices: an espadín with moderate smoke that keeps its quarter conversational. A fiercely smoky bottling drowns the other three.
22.5ml
The honeyed herbs, and yellow strictly. Green’s extra heat and proof capsize the equal-parts balance rather than shifting it, and the two are not interchangeable.
22.5ml
The bridge: soft bitter orange connecting smoke to honey without Campari’s force. Campari at this measure would simply take the drink over.
22.5ml
The order in the room: the acid quarter that holds three loud ingredients upright. Squeezed to order, because it is the only fresh thing in the glass.
Instructions
Add all four ingredients to a shaker with ice.
Shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into a chilled coupe.
Serve without garnish.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; method ours). Last checked 13 August 2026.
Expert Tip
Equal parts means equal. Twenty-two and a half millilitres of each, measured with a jigger, and the balance appears on its own without any adjustment. This family of drinks punishes freehand pouring more than almost anything else, because there is no dominant ingredient to absorb an error and no bitters or garnish to correct it afterwards: a heavy Chartreuse turns the glass into a herbal liqueur with smoke behind it, and a heavy Aperol flattens the whole thing into sweetness. Yellow Chartreuse specifically, too. Green runs hotter and considerably stronger, and at an equal quarter of the drink it capsizes the balance entirely rather than simply shifting it. The two bottles are not interchangeable here.
Flavour Profile
The Origin
Joaquín Simó built it at Death & Co in 2011 and published the lineage alongside the spec, which is unusually generous: a deliberate cross of the Last Word’s equal-parts architecture with the Paper Plane’s modern-amaro palette, and mezcal supplying the passport.
The name came from a song. The drink went canonical almost immediately and now anchors the small group of twenty-first-century classics whose authorship is not in dispute, which is rarer than it sounds: most modern classics acquire three or four competing origin stories within a decade.
The Equal-Parts Lineage
The Last Word, the Paper Plane and this drink form modern bartending’s tidiest family tree: four ingredients, equal volumes, no bitters, no garnish, and balance achieved by architecture alone.
Tasting the three in sequence is the single best lesson available in how a template evolves across eras and shelves. The Last Word is gin, Chartreuse, maraschino and lime, out of Prohibition-era Detroit. The Paper Plane is bourbon, Aperol, Nonino and lemon, from 2007. This is mezcal, Chartreuse, Aperol and lime, from 2011. Same skeleton, three different centuries of back bar.
The Four Voices
Mezcal brings smoke, yellow Chartreuse brings honeyed herbs, Aperol brings soft bitter orange and lime brings order. Each is doing one job and none is doing anybody else’s.
The Chartreuse choice matters most. Yellow is softer, sweeter and lower in proof than green, and at an equal quarter of the drink that difference is the whole balance. The mezcal choice matters nearly as much: an espadín with moderate smoke keeps its quarter conversational, while an aggressively smoky bottling turns three of the four voices into background noise.
Why It Converts People
The drink has an unusual diplomatic property: it converts Aperol drinkers to mezcal and mezcal drinkers to Aperol, often in the same round.
Both of those categories tend to come with prior opinions attached. Aperol reads to many people as a spritz ingredient and nothing more; mezcal reads as aggressively smoky and difficult. Meeting each at a quarter of a glass, held in balance by two other things, is the least confrontational possible introduction to either, and it reliably undoes assumptions that a straight pour of either would have confirmed.
How to Serve It
Cold, up, undecorated and exactly measured. The drink is its own garnish: a muted sunset colour with smoke sitting on the nose before the first sip.
There is genuinely nothing to add. No twist, no bitters, no salt. Four ingredients that were chosen to balance each other, shaken hard, double strained and served immediately. If it needs correcting, the correction is in the measuring rather than in anything you can put on top of it afterwards.
Chartreuse, Yellow Not Green
The recipe specifies yellow Chartreuse, and the substitution is not really available. Green is bottled at 55% against yellow's 40%, and its herbal profile is sharper and considerably more aggressive throughout.
In an equal-parts build that difference is decisive. Yellow's honey and saffron sweetness is what balances the Aperol's bitterness and cushions the mezcal's smoke. Green brings neither, so the drink loses its middle and becomes a contest between smoke and herbs with nothing left to referee it.
Green Chartreuse makes a drink. It does not make this one.
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
Who created the Naked and Famous?
Joaquín Simó, at Death & Co in New York in 2011. He documented it as a deliberate cross of the Last Word and the Paper Plane with mezcal at the helm, and few modern classics have paperwork that clean.
Yellow or green Chartreuse?
Yellow, strictly, and the two are not interchangeable. Its softer, honeyed and lower-proof profile is what holds the equal-parts balance together in the first place. Green Chartreuse’s heat and strength capsize the other three voices rather than shifting them.
What does it taste like?
Smoke, honeyed herbs, gentle bitter orange and lime, all in strict balance: bright at the front and smoky at the finish. It is comfortably the friendliest introduction to mezcal available anywhere in the sour family.
Which mezcal should I use?
An espadín with moderate smoke, which keeps its quarter of the drink conversational. An aggressively smoky bottling turns the other three ingredients into background noise, and the whole point here is that none of the four leads.
Master the Techniques
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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.
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.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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