Similar to Midwestern pickle soda and South Asian masala sodas, Dua Lipa’s salty-spicy Diet Coke works — and is easy to make at home
This past weekend, the singer Dua Lipa made a stop at an Austin restaurant before the ACL Music Festival. While she was there, she stirred both ire and intrigue online when she shared an Instagram story featuring her unusual Coke “recipe.” The concoction consisted of Diet Coke, pickle juice, jalapeños, and their brine. Naturally, X users had thoughts, but many weren’t surprised.
The drink’s appeal isn’t too different from that of the pantheon of lip-puckering beverages from around the world. Think Mexican micheladas or agua de tamarindo (a tamarind drink often spiced with chile), or even more ubiquitous cocktails like spicy margaritas or Bloody Marys. Here in the U.S., we’ve barely scratched the surface of hot-and-tart drinks, as anyone who immediately licks off the tajín rim from cocktails will agree.
On the Indian subcontinent, there’s even a term for this subset of consumers that will go to great lengths to get their fix: chatori (from chatpata, a colloquialism for “spicy-sour”). For much of the rest of the world, there’s an undiscovered universe of chatpata drinks, both homemade and mass-produced, that would dazzle even the chatpati pop princess.
“The West yearns for masala soda,” one X user wrote, sparking a wave of inside jokes among South Asians. In India and Pakistan, spicy sodas have been a part of life for decades, especially during the scorching summers. One of the most traditional forms is banta, a spiced, fizzy lemonade sold in street carts since the mid-20th century.
There’s also jaljeera (literally “cumin water”), an ancient, tangy drink similar to the herby green water in golgappa or fuchka. For relief from India’s intense heat, I’d reach for homemade kanji, a pickled beetroot drink that turned my teeth purple, or chaach, a spiced buttermilk with fresh mint, similar to Iranian doogh but without the fizz.
While the spice ratios in these drinks vary, they often share common ingredients like amchoor (dried mango powder), anardana (dried pomegranate seeds), and black salt, which together form chaat masala, the Swiss army knife of spice blends. This makes it easy to create your own masala soda-inspired cocktail or mocktail at home with drinks you likely already have, plus a generous sprinkle of chaat masala.
But you can also go to an Indian market, where you’ll likely find something close to Lipa’s creation: Thums Up, a spicy cola. Despite being owned by Coca-Cola, it enjoys a larger market share in India than its global counterpart.
The West is slowly warming up to these unique flavors too, with both small businesses and large companies cashing in. Consider the recent popularity of celery soda or pickle soda, the latter of which promises to convert “the flavor experience of sipping from a pickle jar into a sweet soda that’s easy to gulp down.”
If you’re looking for a gateway to spicy drinks, I suggest a simple banta. Make a syrup with equal parts sugar and water, along with an inch of roughly chopped ginger. Strain and cool the syrup before adding lemon juice, a sprinkle of chaat masala, and black salt, then top it off with chilled sparkling water. Or, if you want to try a DIY jaljeera, skip juicing fresh coriander and mint by reaching for celery soda and pickle juice. Muddle mint, sugar, and chaat masala, then add chilled celery soda, pickle juice, and ice. For a fruity surprise, replace the pickle juice with canned Shirley Temples, or swap celery soda with cola for your own masala coke.
Just remember not to overdo the chaat masala, unless you want to burn your cold, cold heart. As for Lipa’s libation? We humbly suggest calling it “One Kiss.”
Mehr Singh is a food and culture reporter based in New York. Her work appears in Bon Appétit, Food52, and other publications.
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