You’ll Never Guess What Tom Hanks Adds to His Diet Coke

Wanna know a fun fact about Tom Hanks? He and his wife, Rita Wilson, have been together for more than 40 years. He’s also distantly related to Abraham Lincoln, and he’s a big fan of old typewriters with a collection that surpasses 250 pieces. My favorite Tom Hanks tidbit, though, is that he drinks Diet Coke with Champagne, a cocktail he cheekily calls Diet Cokagne.

“I’m not a big drinker,” Hanks said to Stephen Colbert in an Instagram video, posted by media company and magazine Cherry Bombe. The clip is from an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, on which Hanks has been a guest several times.

“I don’t drink a lot, so I usually have a Diet Coke…because if you didn’t have a long enough disco nap, you’re gonna fall asleep about 11:45. So I have a little bit of caffeine, Diet Coke in a glass. But they brought the Champagne around, they brought the nice flutes; it was like the last episode of The Bachelor.”

After the audience gives a hearty laugh, he continued. “I said, ‘oh, give me a shot of Champagne in there for crying out loud,’ in the Diet Coke. Everybody says, ‘you’re insane,’ but I want to…celebrate the season. So, I had a sip of this. Stephen, it was delicious.”

“I heard this story, and so I wanted to see,” Colbert said, revealing cans of Diet Coke and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from under his desk.

Hanks walks him through the process, saying he used about a third of a can of Diet Coke in a glass of ice. He adds that you can substitute any cola product, but he uses sugar-free cola because he has type 2 diabetes.

“This is exactly what the folks at Veuve Clicquot intended,” Colbert joked as he topped off their sodas with bubbly.

“Look at the color, it’s gorgeous,” Hanks raved.

“It’s like an American Aperol spritz,” Colbert quipped back. They both took a sip and Colbert silently mouthed wow to Hanks.

“How ’bout that?” he responded with elation.

While I haven’t tried it myself, I can totally see this pairing working. Both drinks are crisp and effervescent, so the combination likely makes for a superbly bright, fizzy sip. But where they differ is flavor—Champagne usually being slightly acidic and cola being sweet. I imagine they balance each other out while doubling down on the refreshment factor. I can see the citrusy, caramel-y, vanilla-kissed notes of the soda complementing the bubbly’s flavor profile, too.

I’m a coffee cola girl myself, but I’ll add this to my list of future nightcaps.