Naked and Famous

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What Is a Naked and Famous?

The Naked and Famous is a mezcal-based equal-parts cocktail — mezcal, yellow Chartreuse, Aperol, and fresh lime juice in perfectly balanced quarters — that takes the classic Last Word structure and reimagines it with a smoky, contemporary twist. Its creator has described it directly as a hybrid of two other modern classics: the site's own Last Word and Sam Ross's Paper Plane, borrowing Chartreuse from the former and Aperol from the latter.

The History Behind the Naked and Famous

The Naked and Famous was created in 2011 by bartender Joaquín Simó at Death & Co, the influential New York cocktail bar that helped define the modern craft cocktail movement. Simó has described the drink in his own words as "the bastard child born out of an illicit Oaxacan love affair between the classic Last Word and the Paper Plane," a nod to how directly he built the recipe from those two equal-parts predecessors — taking the Last Word's structure and its use of Chartreuse, and the Paper Plane's use of Aperol, then swapping in mezcal as the anchoring spirit to give the whole thing a smoky, agave-driven identity of its own. The name comes from a lyric in "Tricky Kid," a song by the British musician Tricky that Simó enjoyed in his youth, continuing a small tradition among bartenders of this era naming their creations after songs they loved, a detail confirmed in Wikipedia's entry on the Naked and Famous. Like both of the drinks it descends from, the Naked and Famous earned official recognition from the International Bartenders Association in 2020, and it's widely credited as one of the single most effective cocktails at introducing skeptical drinkers to mezcal, softening the spirit's intense smoke with three carefully chosen supporting ingredients.

What Does a Naked and Famous Taste Like?

Mezcal provides smoky, earthy, slightly vegetal depth that immediately signals this isn't a typical citrus-forward cocktail. Yellow Chartreuse — sweeter and milder than its green counterpart, with notes of honey, saffron, and chamomile — softens the mezcal's intensity while adding its own herbal complexity. Aperol contributes bittersweet orange flavor and a lighter touch of bitterness, while fresh lime juice ties everything together with clean acidity. The overall balance is smoky, herbal, citrusy, and bittersweet all at once — genuinely complex, yet surprisingly easy-drinking given how much is happening in the glass, with a striking orange-amber color that hints at the layered flavor underneath.

How to Make a Naked and Famous

Shake 0.75 oz mezcal, 0.75 oz yellow Chartreuse, 0.75 oz Aperol, and 0.75 oz fresh lime juice with ice until well chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. No garnish is traditionally required, keeping the presentation as clean as the ingredient list. As with the Last Word and Paper Plane before it, the equal-parts ratio is non-negotiable — the drink's balance depends on all four components carrying identical weight rather than one spirit dominating the others.

Popular Variations

Because the Naked and Famous is already a deliberate hybrid, most variations tweak just one ingredient rather than reinventing the whole structure. Swapping yellow Chartreuse for green produces a noticeably stronger, boozier, more intensely herbal drink, since green Chartreuse carries both higher alcohol content and a sharper flavor than the yellow version, a distinction outlined in Robb Report's guide to the Naked and Famous. Some bartenders substitute Campari for Aperol for a drier, more assertively bitter result, echoing the same Campari-to-Aperol conversation that shaped the original Paper Plane. For drinkers curious about mezcal's smoky character in a different classic format, the site's Negroni can also be built with mezcal in place of gin for a similarly smoky reinterpretation.

Glassware, Garnish, and When to Serve It

A chilled coupe glass is the standard serve, letting the drink's amber-orange color show through cleanly. No garnish is typical, in keeping with the minimalist presentation shared across the whole equal-parts family. It's a sophisticated sipping cocktail well suited to a serious cocktail bar or a home bartender's more ambitious evening, occupying similar contemplative territory to the site's Aviation and Bee's Knees.

Why the Naked and Famous Became a Modern Classic

The Naked and Famous succeeds for the same reason its two ancestors did: a foolproof equal-parts structure that's easy to remember and scale, applied to a genuinely interesting new combination of flavors. By choosing mezcal as the anchoring spirit, Simó gave bartenders a reliable, well-balanced vehicle for introducing an increasingly popular but still intimidating spirit to curious drinkers, which is a large part of why the cocktail has been credited with converting more people to mezcal than perhaps any other single drink. A little over a decade after its creation, it stands alongside the Penicillin as one of the clearest proofs that the 21st century has produced cocktails worthy of standing beside the classics that inspired them, joined by the equal-parts Boulevardier in that same modern-classic conversation.