The background: Ernest Hemingway's debut novel “Fiesta”, with which the author achieved his breakthrough in 1927, combines hair-raising debauchery and legendary drinking along with almost tender descriptions of extreme violence. Spain's bullfights in particular were a source of inspiration for the writer as well as a symbol of cowardice and bravery, sport and tragedy. In the essay “Death in the Afternoon”, published five years later, Hemingway again devoted himself to an examination of this dangerous ritual and its deadly elegance. Inspired by the intensity of life and the inevitability of death captured in those hot, violent afternoons, the Nobel Prize winning author developed a cocktail - and named it after his work: “Death in the Afternoon”.

Three to five times a day?

Listed since 1935 in the classic 64-page recipe collection “So Red the Nose, Or Breath in the Afternoon”, the drink also known as the “Hemingway” consists of one part absinthe to four parts Champagne. This is a heady, high-alcohol blend, which the author himself recommended drinking three to five times a day!  “Death in the Afternoon” is not only an homage to its inventor, but is also simple and straightforward to make: two of the reasons why it has been chosen by Falstaff as this year's “Champagne Cocktail of the Year”.