Few people would combine Diet Coke and Champagne.
However, legendary actor and filmmaker Tom Hanks is a thinker who thinks outside the box. And he recently created a cocktail that is as fizzy as it is unique.
“The Diet Cokagne” was born during a holiday celebration, Hanks revealed to Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” this week.
“I don’t drink much. Because I don’t drink, I usually drink Diet Coke “He mentioned that Champagne was brought out for this particular occasion.
“I said, ‘Oh, for crying out loud, give me a shot of champagne in there,'” Hanks said, confirming that he did, in fact, mean a shot in his Diet Coke. “‘Well, I may be insane, but I want to help — I want to celebrate the season,’ I explained. So I took a sip of it.”
He’d finished a third of his Diet Coke and added a “shot” of champagne.
Hanks described it as “delicious” to Colbert. And the name, according to Hanks, was intuitive.
“We were debating the name, and I came up with it because it’s coke and champagne,” he explained. “Of course, it’s ‘Diet Cokagne.'” Colbert proposed naming it the “Tom Hanks,” after the “Tom Collins” cocktail. Hanks was also cool with the idea.
After Hanks explained the origins of his two-ingredient drink, the two sampled it. Before taking a sip, Colbert remarked that the cocktail is similar to a “American Aperol Spritz.”
While we may not make the same comparison — or the same combination — combining a flavoured liquid, such as sugary juices, with a bubbly, such as prosecco or champagne, to create a cocktail is fairly common.
Cocktails like the Aperol Spritz (Aperol, club soda, Prosecco), the French 75 (gin, Champagne, lemon juice), and the mimosa (orange juice, Champagne), and the Bellini (peach juice, Prosecco) all combine flavoured liqueurs or juices with bubbly.
Using Coke in a cocktail is also becoming more common. Consider rum and Coke, or the Kalimotxo, a red wine and Coke cocktail that is similar to Hanks’ concoction.
And it’s starting to catch on across the internet.
TikTok users are posting videos of themselves drinking the beverage in various settings, and some of the videos have gone viral.
