Naked and Famous

.75 Mezcal
.75 Yellow Chartreuse
.75 Aperol
.75 Lime Juice

Shake all ingredients and strain into a chilled coupe glass.

I recently picked up this year's Food and Wine Cocktails 2012.  I've been buying these books for a few years now because they have some interesting recipes ideas in them (although some are misses).  This year's version is set up a bit different than past years.  In previous years there were sections for drinks by spirit (brand, gin, vodka, etc) or theme (pitcher, mocktail, classic, etc).  This year it is organized by classic cocktail(blood and sand, margarita, etc), and then takes on it (classic, twist, reinvention, mocktail).  Seems to be a pretty interesting idea for people who want to get into making their own variations on a drink. 

The Naked and Famous was listed as the reinvention in the Last Word section.  I made this Last Word variation as one of my first drinks out of this book because Last Words are one of my favorite drinks (although they can come off as a little sweet), and the mescal / aperol / yellow charteruse version sounded cool.

The drink starts off with a muted mezcal smoke on the nose.  Taste begins with mezcal and smoke reminiscent of a mezcal based margarita or el diablo.  This transitions into faint grapefruit and herbal notes with a subtle sugar sweetness.  The drink ends with some chartreuse herbals and leaves a smokey flavor on the tongue.  As time goes on the initial hit of mezcal starts to dissipate and the aperol comes through with hints of grapefruit and lime.