Before we travel back in time, here's a practical gift: the complete ingredient shopping list to build this drink at home. Now, the legend.
The Naked and Famous was created in 2011 by Joaquín Simó at the legendary Death & Co in New York, one of the temples of modern craft bartending. Simó, of Ecuadorian origin, wanted to pay tribute to two great cocktails: the Last Word (equal parts of four ingredients) and the Paper Plane (the same structure revisited by Sam Ross). He took the skeleton of the Last Word and replaced every ingredient with a smokier, more bitter version.
The result is: mezcal, yellow Chartreuse, Aperol and lime juice, equal parts. The name is a provocative reference to the song "Naked & Famous" by the Presidents of the United States, and is a pun on the philosophy of the cocktail: "naked" because mezcal is pure and unfiltered, "famous" because of its elegant sophistication. A true modern classic of the mezcal revolution.
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