The Naked and Famous cocktail is deliciously complex and perfectly balanced with a smoky, bitter, sweet, and refreshingly citrusy flavour. It is a blend of equal parts mezcal, Aperol, Chartreuse, and lime juice. This refreshing cocktail makes a perfect aperitif and it's one of my very favourite go-to drinks.

A halved lime and a Naked and Famous cocktail garnished with edible flowers.

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Ingredients
Origin
Instructions
Equipment
📖 Recipe

This cocktail was granted International Bartender Association's official cocktail status; essentially its place on a list that includes all of the great classic cocktails as well as a few newer editions. It is a true modern classic cocktail. Have a taste and you will soon see why.

Overhead view of a Naked and Famous cocktail garnished with edible flowers.

Ingredients

Aperol - A bright orange, Italian bitter apertif with a flavour that is slightly sweet, bitter, and herbal with zesty citrus. This adds colour and bitter complexity to the drink. It is less intense than Campari, which would drown the complexity of the mezcal.
Yellow Chartreuse - A sweet, spicy, and herbaceous liqueur made from a secret recipe by Monks in France. The liquor is distilled with 130 different herbs, plants, and flowers. See my Gypsy Eyes cocktail post to read a bit more about the fascinating history of Chartreuse. Yellow Chartreuse is preferred over the Green version in this recipe because it is less intense, giving the mezcal more ability to shine through.
Mezcal - A distilled liquor from Mexico that can be made from 11 different types of agave plants (tequila only comes from the blue agave plant) and comes in a wide range of flavour profiles. The true to original recipe mezcal to use is Del Maguey's Chichicapa. However, you can use any big, 'smoky' mezcal in this cocktail. It needs to be able to contend with the two complex liqueurs and you want the smoke flavour.
Freshly squeezed lime juice - This adds a bright, fresh, and citrusy burst of flavour.

See the recipe card below for quantities.

Origin

Joaquín Simó created this cocktail at the famous Death & Co bar, New York, in 2011. Featured in the Death & Co book, it is a variation and a blend of the classic Last Word cocktail and the Paper Plane, or according to Simó, a "bastard love child borne out of an illicit Oaxacan love affair" between the two. All three are made of four equal parts.

Paper plane is made of bourbon, Nonino amaro, Aperol, and lemon juice.
The Last Word is made of gin, Green Chartreuse, Luxardo maraschino liqueur, and lime juice.

The name of this cocktail, 'Naked and Famous', was a lyric pulled from the song 'Tricky Kid' by Tricky that Simó enjoyed in his youth. It has come to be his most popular cocktail creation.

Death & Co book

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A Naked and Famous cocktail garnished with edible flowers.

Instructions

Measure all of the ingredients into your cocktail shaker and shake well with ice.

Pour through a cocktail strainer into a chilled coupe glass.

Optionally, garnish with a lime wedge or with edible flowers like I did.

Disclaimer: It should be said that not everyone who gets naked becomes famous. So keep that in mind before having too many of these and getting any wild ideas. 😉