Sparkling cocktails · Absinthe
Pour champagne onto absinthe and watch the glass turn from clear green to a pale, opalescent milk. Dry bubbles carry anise, fennel and wormwood, and the result is far stronger than a glass of fizz.
1 oz
absinthe Hemingway used a full jigger (about 45 ml)e.g. Pernod · La Clandestine · Kübler · St. George · Lucid
4 oz
champagne well chilled, brute.g. Moët & Chandon · Veuve Clicquot · Taittinger · Laurent-Perrier · Pommery
Garnish: None, served as is · Ice: Served up, no ice
Death in the Afternoon
Crisp and very dry, with anise and herbal bitterness under fine bubbles. Deceptively light on the tongue but high in alcohol.
The recipe comes from Ernest Hemingway, who contributed it to So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon, a 1935 collection of cocktails from well-known writers. The drink borrows its name from his 1932 book on Spanish bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon.
His instructions are famous for their dry humour: pour one jigger of absinthe into a champagne glass and add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness, then drink three to five of these slowly. Absinthe was banned in France and the United States at the time, which only added to the drink's air of mischief. Today most bartenders use a smaller measure of absinthe than his generous jigger.
Essential oils from anise and fennel are soluble in alcohol but not in water. When the champagne dilutes the absinthe, they come out of solution and create the milky louche.
Ernest Hemingway, who published the recipe in the 1935 book So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon.
You can, but pastis is sweeter and lower in alcohol, so the drink will taste more of liquorice and less of herbs.
The perfect sound
A Hemingway afternoon between bullfight and bubbles.
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