Division Bell

Mezcal, Aperol, maraschino, and fresh lime — Phil Ward's Death & Co. 2007 Last Word riff with mezcal replacing gin, named for Pink Floyd's 1994 Division Bell album.

The Division Bell was created by Phil Ward at Death & Co., the celebrated cocktail bar that opened on East 6th Street in New York City's East Village in January 2007. Ward, who worked alongside founding bartenders including Brian Miller and Alex Day in the bar's early years, was among the most creative figures of the craft cocktail movement's New York wave. The drink is named for The Division Bell, the fourteenth studio album by Pink Floyd, released on March 28, 1994, whose title referenced the division bell that calls members of the British Parliament to vote — a metaphor the band applied to communication, separation, and political division. Ward's formula — mezcal, Aperol, maraschino liqueur, and fresh lime juice — applies the Last Word's equal-parts structural logic to a mezcal base, substituting mezcal for gin, Aperol for green Chartreuse, and lime for lemon while retaining maraschino as the common element. The Last Word's equal-parts principle — four ingredients in identical proportions finding balance through complementary flavor registers — is preserved: mezcal's smoke and agave earthiness, Aperol's bitter citrus, maraschino's cherry-almond sweetness, and lime's citric acid each occupy different aromatic positions. Death & Co. went on to win the James Beard Foundation Outstanding Bar Program award in 2012 and has been recognized as one of the most influential cocktail bars in American history.