Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, Bitters and Soda!

It's 2026. You're allowed to be bitter.

The bar mat is the only Malort in this article. Promise.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I’m writing this on a Wednesday and the horrors seem to have put at bay for now. Let’s take a deep breath and respect Dry January with my favorite (almost) NA cocktail recipe. Time for Bitters and Soda. Here’s the recipe.

Bitters and Soda

10-12 shakes Angostura, Cocoa, or whatever bitters move you

6-8 oz Don Q soda, or your cola of choice

Add all ingredients to a highball glass over ice. Garnish with a lime wedge.

It’s not much of a recipe per se, I’ll grant you. This isn’t arcane mixology. It’s a permission slip to combine two ingredients you might not have considered complementary. Bitters add complexity and spice to any cocktail. Angostura bitters in cola tamps down the sticky sweetness of pop and adds welcome layers of spice. It’s a grown-up version of soda, and my go-to when I want to hit a bar but drive home.

While this is definitely a low-proof cocktail, it isn’t strictly non-alcoholic. Most bitters hover around 120 proof. If you’re heavy-handed and shake a quarter ounce of bitters into a 6 oz glass of pop, you’ll have a drink that’s roughly 8 proof. Not something you’ll get a buzz out of, but significant enough that I’d recommend someone with medical issues try something else. NA bitters do exist, but I’ve never had the opportunity to work with them.

Every dive bar in the world has a bottle of Angostura lurking on the back counter. Angostura was created in Venezuela by Dr. Johann Siegert, a German doctor in Simon Bolivar’s army. Most bitters started out as patent medicines intended to aid digestion. Gentian root, the bittering agent in Angostura, is supposed to help with digestion and inflammation. I’ve had the … pleasure of drinking oops-all-bitters cocktails like the Trinidad Sour, which contains a whopping ounce and a half of Angostura. It did not help my digestion. Not even remotely. (We’re running a tiki version of the Trinidad Sour at Hemingway’s right now. It’s called the “Trinidadi Issues.” You’re welcome.)

These days, there are dozens of bitters flavors to work with. I’ve got Angostura, orange, cocoa, mole, rhubarb, celery, spiced cherry, and grapefruit bitters in my liquor cabinet right now. We’ve got those plus Turkish tobacco, toasted almond, black walnut, bonfire, and tiki bitters at Hemingway’s. Any of those would be fine in a simple glass of sparkling water. That’s generally how I discover what a new flavor is like; bitters are too intense neat to analyze. Bitters are deliberately dense in flavor; you need to dilute them in order to taste them properly.

That being said, I really enjoy bitters with some cola. Coca-Cola is a really good mixer by design; it pairs well with rum, tequila, bourbon ... you name it. A fruit-flavored soda like Sprite would be fine for orange or grapefruit. I don’t have much faith that diet sodas will cooperate nicely with bitters. Artificial sweeteners and alcohol never seem to mix well. And do use come common sense. Celery bitters in cola? Not a fan. But celery bitters in tomato juice? You’re on the road towards a nice NA Bloody Mary. Feel free to experiment. There are no rules.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Liquor store shot. This is only a handful of the bitters out there.

Coca-Cola: Mexican pop is generally considered the best, but I would be hard-pressed to taste the difference between cane-sugar cola and American corn-syrup cola. There’s a difference in thickness, but it’s minor. Use what you like.

Bitters: Angostura is almost always a good choice. I wouldn’t rule any choice out right away, though. I went to a bar recently and had absinthe bitters and cola. It was amazing — a mini-Sazerac in a glass. Be bold, experiment. I’m currently enjoying a glass of cola with grapefruit bitters and a splash of tequila; it might qualify as the best Batanga I’ve ever had.

Lime wedge: Limes are tiny, hard golfballs this time of year. I love some lime juice in my cola, but you might want to skip these until spring.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by and I’ll make a drink for you … or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette.

OPEN THREAD!