Bartender’s Notebook: Enjoying absinthe at Ça Va

Champagne is a dangerous liquid for me. Too often, I’ve forgotten that it does, in fact, contain alcohol. So it was with some minor trepidation that I slinked into the new champagne bar Ça Va at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, reminding myself that restraint was essential for the evening’s task.

Justin Norcross – who, along with the Rieger’s Howard Hanna, is one of Ça Va’s partners and the man frequently visible behind the handsome marble bar – has been hiding in his office for most of the afternoon. He’s tall, with a thick, pirate-worthy black beard that doesn’t immediately strike me as the look of a man ready to advise what kind of bubbly best suits a garden party. But his latest venture has been booming since its February opening, so I trust him.

“I’m thinking absinthe,” I say, having seen the ingredient on the list of champagne cocktails that the bar offers. Norcross nods as he slips on an industrial-looking canvas apron.

“We do a great Death in the Afternoon. It’s pretty simple,” he says. “Do you want to try that?”

I signal my readiness to taste death.

Norcross arranges his two ingredients in front of me: a bottle each of St. George Absinthe and Gruet Blanc de Noirs. He plucks a square-ish, sturdy-looking champagne glass from the rack above the bar and, without measuring, pours in what looks like half an ounce of absinthe. St. George is not the stuff I remember from my multiple viewings of Moulin Rouge. It is a medium amber-brown, with maybe a hint of green in the light – not the Green Fairy everyone thinks of.

“With St. George Absinthe, the flavor cuts through, but it doesn’t bite as hard as some of the other absinthes that we brought in and tried,” Norcross explains. He pours me a sample. It tastes like someone blended licorice syrup with Windex. He laughs at the face I pull, then fills the champagne glass flush to the top with the Gruet.

“Why is it called Death in the Afternoon?” I ask Norcross.

“It was actually named by Ernest Hemingway, after his 1930s book Death in the Afternoon,” Norcross tells me. “The cocktail was from him spending a bunch of time on the Left Bank [of Paris], and the recipe was actually published in a 1935 book called So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon. There were a lot of famous writers that contributed recipes to this book.

“Hemingway’s recipe was kind of hilarious,” Norcross continues. He paraphrases the author: “Take a champagne glass, one jigger of absinthe, and pour champagne into that until it reaches the right opalescent milkiness.”

I take a first sip. The anise flavor is still there, but the acid notes I sensed in the absinthe alone are softened by the champagne. The bubbles give the drink a warm balance and a citrusy sweetness. This is a clever beverage: not so refreshing that I’m tempted to toss it back, not so deadly that I’m hung up about restraint.

“Hemingway’s instructions were to ‘repeat three to five times slowly,'” Norcross says. He laughs. “My record is six, and I don’t recommend anyone shoot for much higher. It’s a pretty ridiculous drink.”

DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON
$9 at Ça Va, or play along at home:

1/2 oz. St. George Absinthe
3 – 4 oz. champagne

Norcross says: “Absinthe first, then champagne. If absinthe isn’t available, you can always use Pernod – it’s not going to have the same punch, but it’s a similar flavor profile. As an option here, to sweeten it up for some people, we take the demerara sugar cube that we make and hold it in – almost like you’re dunking a cookie in milk, so it absorbs some of the liquid – and then we let it go. If you just drop it straight in, it’s like dropping Mentos in a Diet Coke can.”