I love a Margarita. But also, I love a tall, bubbly, low-ABV crusher. And at Ridgewood, Queens’ newly opened Hellbender Nighttime Café, where Margaritas take center stage in the bar’s beverage program, these two concepts come together in the same glass. The Margarita Soda is shocking in its simplicity, yet I was instantly sold on it. How had I never thought of this myself?
The base of the drink is a Tommy’s Margarita, where agave syrup is swapped in for orange liqueur, bringing body without additional cloying sweetness. This is topped with club soda, which opens up the earthy tequila notes and the sharp lime, offering balanced, layered complexity. The cocktail is bright, tangy and easy to drink, and pairs perfectly with the comforting Mexican bar food by Yara Herrera.
“You could have a couple and not feel terribly naughty,” says Tony Milici, former beverage director at Hellbender, and the drink’s creator. And he’s absolutely right. I could easily enjoy three of these in one go without a single regret the next morning.
However, while designing the menu, this straightforward mashup wasn’t an obvious choice at first. With the team stumped while pondering a low-ABV highball that would fit the Margarita-centric menu—like an “and Tonic” situation—a rogue half-joke from the director of operations, Ben Howell, suddenly became the perfect solution. “It’s not terribly serious; it’s just kind of what we all wanna drink,” says Milici.
The Margarita Soda changed me: My skin cleared, my blood pressure normalized, I no longer need therapy. A switch was flipped. The simple, yet ingenious, combination checks off everything I want in a cocktail—it’s flavorful, easy to make and easy to drink. And it was right in front of us this whole time. May I dare say, this is the next drink of summer? If so, you saw it here first.