Death in the Afternoon

Death in the Afternoon is a novel, as well as a cocktail, by Ernest Hemingway. The cocktail consists of absinthe and Champagne, and was named after the book. According to Absinthe Online its origin is as follows:

A recipe verified in the 1935 humoristic celebrities' cocktail book titled
So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon edited by the famous journalist and author Sterling North and Carl Kroch.
Hemingway wrote: "This was arrived at by the author and three officers of the H.M.S. Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders' fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale."

In his article Trying to Clear Absinthe’s Reputation for The New York Times, Harold McGee gives Hemingway's original recipe:

Death in the Afternoon

Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.



We do not recommend actually drinking three to five of these, unless your intention is suicide in the afternoon. Additionally, we do not recommend breaking out serious Champagne for this cocktail; a nice sparkling wine will do. Pick something low in acidity and not too dry. We find that Asti Spumante performs admirably.


This is how much absinthe we use, not even a third of what Hemingway recommends. One jigger (1.5 ounces, 44 mL) is vastly more than enough absinthe; we use about a third of an ounce, and we are people who deeply enjoy absinthe. If this is your first time trying an absinthe cocktail, or you do not have a strong constitution where absinthe is concerned, I recommend putting just a drop or two in the glass and swirling it around to cover the sides before pouring in the sparkling wine. We used Absinthe Duplais Verte here, and enjoyed it immensely.