Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Spaghett!

No, that's not a typo.

I swear, this has never happened to me before.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Last week’s drink was pretty complex. Let’s make something simpler today. And by “simpler,” I mean “dumb.” I mean, seriously dumb. This is literally a bad joke of a cocktail that somehow works. No one expected, or asked for, a champagne cocktail made with the Champagne of Beers. But it’s 2024, and joy appears in unexpected places. Let’s make a Spaghett. Here’s the recipe:

Spaghett

1 bottle cold Miller High Life

1 oz fresh lemon juice

1.5 oz citrus aperitivo, such as Aperol or Spritzatto

Pour roughly 4 oz of beer out of the bottle. Consume, share, or discard the 4 oz as desired. Pour the lemon juice and aperitivo into the beer bottle. Serve at once. 

This is, basically, an Aperol Spritz made with “The Champagne of Beers,” Miller High Life, as opposed to actual champagne. It first showed up in 2016 at the Wet City Brewery in Baltimore, and has been hanging around ever since. I had less than zero expectations for the cocktail, but it’s surprisingly good. The lemon juice is what really saves it; citrus and simple lager go together perfectly. Corona Extra with a lime wedge is the classic example. Miller High Life is actually not awful; the lemon juice gives it needed tartness, and the aperitivo provides subtlety that would otherwise be absent from the drink. I would happily drink this in midsummer.

Did you know that Miller High Life is a 120 year old brand? I’d have to dig deeper to see if it was the first bottled beer in America, but it’s certainly a contender. That might explain the clear bottles; most “quality” beer in America comes in green or brown bottles today, to reduce the chance of photo-oxidation. (Craft beers have been steadily moving into cans for this reason; zero light exposure is ideal.)  If you’re of a certain age, you might remember hearing some version of this jingle, and there’s your ear worm for the weekend. Even Miller’s classic “girl in the moon” art has graced the label since the turn of the 20th century and shows no sign of fading. All in all, it is, to my amazement, a rather good session beer. It’s not complex, but it’s nicely drinkable. 

The cocktail doesn’t have a right to be this good. It clearly started life as a joke on Miller High Life’s name. Mixologists have been playing with “high-low” concepts for a little while now, transforming “lowbrow” ingredients into something special through sheer artistry. Some bartenders I know in Cleveland are working up a combination Long Island Iced Tea/Ramos Gin Fizz in this vein. Power to them, but I’m not a fan. Customers can tell when you’re insincere, and unless you’re serving a tragically hip crowd, jokes like this can fall flat. I’d rather celebrate the virtues of a blue-collar bottle than mock something “ordinary” people drink. That is, ultimately, why this drink remains popular. It elevates an everyday, easy-to-ignore beer into something special. That, I can appreciate. 

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot. The cocktail disappeared shortly after this photo was taken.

Miller High Life: It’s not strictly necessary to hunt down this beer for this drink. Corona would be perfectly fine, as would any other Mexican-lager style beer. I do think the clear bottle makes the drink look better, but don’t let that stop you from experimenting. 

Likewise, there’s no reason not to play with the idea of beer-and-a-shot straight into the beer bottle concept and see what happens. Coors Banquet and some workhorse whiskey like Old Grand Dad? Top-notch choice. Corona and tequila? Lord, yes. Stout and Irish whiskey? Certainly — Irish Car Bombs are a thing. Fancy frou-frou Pine-Sol flavored IPA? Pass.

Lemon Juice: I’ll give you one free pass here. If you’re tailgating in the summertime, use a plastic bottle of lemon juice. Lowbrow ingredients often work well together. Otherwise, stick with fresh.  

Aperitivo: Aperol is the gold standard here, but it’s rather pricey for a “joke” cocktail at home. If you’re going to drink a lot of Aperol Spritzes at home go with it, but the Spritzatto I picked up for $15 is half the price of Aperol and just as nice. 

Feel free to heave other aperitivos, or flavored liqueurs of any stripe, into a bottle of Miller and see what you like. Pasta-themed names for such cocktails seem to be required for such riffs. One bar made a version with Cynar instead of Aperol and called it a “Linguin.” I’ve got some leftover Pimm’s lurking in my liquor cabinet. Let’s see if a “Raviol” is any good. 

In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below!  

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