Naked and Famous
22.5 ml Mezcal, 22.5 ml Aperol, 22.5 ml Yellow Chartreuse, 22.5 ml Lime juice, 1 wheel Lime
Oaxaca Old Fashioned
An Old Fashioned that smells of a campfire.
Modern Classic
Easy
4 min
Ingredients
- 45 ml Jigger One small side (25 ml) of a standard jigger, plus a tablespoon and a teaspoon. Mezcal
- 15 ml Spoons A tablespoon. Tequila blanco - The tequila keeps it from being all smoke
- 7.5 ml Spoons One and a half teaspoons. Agave syrup
- 2 dashes Bottle Two quick shakes of the bottle - each a few drops, about a millilitre. Angostura bitters
- 1 twist Orange twist (optional)
Measured in Millilitres (UK). Sign in to read these in American measures. Print a kitchen card at this size.
What the jigger, the spoons and the jug hold, in millilitres and in fluid ounces, is on the measures reference.
Quick version
- Stir everything over ice and strain over one large cube.
Method
- Fill a mixing glass with ice and add the mezcal, tequila, agave syrup and bitters.
- Stir for 30 seconds.
- Strain over one large cube in a rocks glass.
- Express an orange peel over the top and drop it in.
Serve it
Oaxaca Old Fashioned
Phil Ward made this at Death & Co in New York in 2007, and it did more for mezcal than a decade of explaining. The idea was simply to make an Old Fashioned with agave spirits, in a city where the drink had been a rye drink for a hundred years - and the half-measure of tequila in there alongside the mezcal is what stops it becoming a glass of smoke.
Getting it right
Mezcal is a big, warm, divisive flavour: if yours is a fierce one, use a little less and make the tequila up. Agave syrup rather than sugar is obvious once you taste it, and orange peel rather than a cherry is the garnish that suits it - the citrus cuts through the smoke, where a cherry would sink into it.
Tasting notes
Smoke, roasted agave and a little vanilla, with orange oil sitting on top of the glass and a long, warm, faintly sweet finish. It is the campfire of the cocktail world, and the drink that converts people who "do not like mezcal".
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