Drinks With Club Soda: Highballs, Rickeys and Ratios by Spirit

Club soda is carbonated water with a small dose of mineral salts dissolved into it, usually some combination of sodium bicarbonate, potassium sulfate, sodium citrate or sodium chloride, and that pinch of salt is the whole reason it behaves differently from the other clear, fizzy bottles in the mixer aisle.

Because it contributes no sugar, no acid worth measuring and no bitterness, club soda is the one mixer that adds length to a drink without changing what the drink tastes like, which makes it the most honest way to find out whether you actually like a spirit.

Club soda, seltzer, tonic and mineral water

The four are often shelved together and treated as interchangeable, although only two of them really are.

Seltzer and club soda can be swapped in almost any recipe, since the mineral content in club soda is low enough that most people cannot pick it out blind, while the salt it does carry works the way a pinch of salt works in a lemonade, suppressing a little of the perceived bitterness and making fruit flavors read as slightly sharper. Mineral water is a less predictable substitute, because a heavily mineralized brand can bring enough salt and calcium to taste of something in its own right. Tonic is not a substitute at all. It is a sweetened, bitter mixer that happens to be clear, and the gin-and-tonic family is covered separately in our guide to drinks with tonic water.

How much soda dilutes a highball

A highball is spirit, ice and a carbonated mixer in a tall glass, and the arithmetic of it is simple enough to do at the counter.

Start with the alcohol. Two ounces of 40% spirit carries 0.8 ounces of ethanol. Topped with four ounces of soda, the drink sits at about 13% alcohol by volume; with six ounces it falls to 10%, which is roughly the strength of a glass of light wine. Ice melt then adds somewhere between half an ounce and an ounce over the first several minutes, which takes the six-ounce version a little under 9%. A 1:3 ratio of spirit to soda is therefore a sensible default, while 1:2 suits whiskeys and aged brandies whose flavor would otherwise thin out.

Temperature matters more than ratio, because carbon dioxide is far more soluble in cold water than in warm, with water near freezing holding about twice as much dissolved CO2 as water at room temperature. Warm soda poured over ice releases its gas immediately, melts the ice faster and produces a drink that is both flatter and weaker than intended. Chilling the soda, the spirit and the glass, then pouring the soda down a bar spoon or the inside of the glass rather than splashing it onto the ice, preserves most of the carbonation that the bottle started with.

Drinks with club soda and vodka

Vodka and soda is the plainest highball there is, and its plainness is the point, since the drink has so little flavor that the quality of the lime and the temperature of the glass become most of what you taste. The Autodafe is that drink written down, vodka, lime juice and soda, and the Karl Malden is the same idea named for a brand, Ketel One with a squeeze of lime. A half ounce of fresh lime juice per two ounces of vodka keeps the drink bright without making it a sour.

For drinks with club soda, vodka and cranberry juice, the Karoff splits the mixer between cranberry and soda, which gives the color and tartness of a Cape Codder at about half the sugar, and the Happy Ending uses Absolut Mandrin so that the orange note does the job a wedge would otherwise do. The Handball Cooler swaps cranberry for orange juice, which turns a Screwdriver into something long enough to last an afternoon.

Gin, whiskey and tequila

Gin carries more botanical flavor than vodka, so it tolerates more soda, and the Gin Highball at 1:3 with a lemon twist is drier and more aromatic than a gin and tonic precisely because nothing is competing with the juniper. The rickey, which is spirit, lime and soda with no added sugar, is the other classic form, and while the gin version is the famous one, the database’s Apple Brandy Rickey and Cutty Rickey, the latter built on Cutty Sark scotch, show how well the template carries over to other bases.

Whiskey and soda is where the 1:2 ratio earns its place, because the soda opens up the grain and wood notes in the same way a few drops of water do in a neat pour. The Ballylickey Bait adds honey to Irish whiskey and soda; dissolving a teaspoon of honey in a splash of warm water first keeps it from sinking to the bottom as a cold lump. The Black Watch pairs scotch with Kahlua and soda, a richer drink in which the bubbles stop the coffee liqueur from feeling heavy.

Tequila and soda depends on a clean blanco (the Texas ranch water is the same idea built with Topo Chico mineral water), which is why the Cactus Club VIP specifies Patron Silver with fresh lime juice. The Black Cactus adds blackberry brandy to a reposado, which makes it darker and fruitier. Rum is the odd absence in this collection, since none of the rum-and-soda recipes in our pull use a plain white rum; a white rum, lime and soda built like a rickey works well enough, although it reads thinner than the gin version. Aged rum fares better at 1:2.

Liqueurs and aperitifs

Club soda is the standard way of turning a bitter or sweet liqueur into an aperitif, because it lowers both the sugar concentration and the alcohol without masking anything. The Campari and Soda is the benchmark, usually built at 1:3 with an orange slice, and the Italian Tickler does the same for amaretto, which becomes surprisingly light once its syrupy texture is diluted. Wine works too. The White Wine Spritzer follows the same logic with wine, and the Japanese Chuhai, shochu with lemon juice and soda, shows how much a low-proof spirit benefits from carbonation.

Grenadine, lime and non-alcoholic club soda drinks

Grenadine and soda on their own make a pink, very sweet drink, so the Grapefruit Lemonade balances the syrup with grapefruit juice, which gives the bitterness that a Shirley Temple lacks. The Lime Fizz is nothing more than Rose’s lime juice and soda, and the Honey Lemonade and Lemon Squash are older soda-fountain formulas that still work as a weekday drink. The Egg Cream, which contains neither egg nor cream, is chocolate syrup, whole milk and soda, and it relies on the carbonation to raise a foamy head; the soda has to be very cold and poured hard for that head to form.

The ingredient search on CocktailBuilder will return the rest of the club soda recipes against whatever else is already in the cabinet, and for a sweeter fizzy base our notes on drinks with ginger ale cover the next step up.

Keeping an open bottle

A one-liter bottle loses a noticeable share of its carbonation each time it is opened and poured, since every pour lowers the pressure in the headspace and lets more gas leave the liquid. Small cans or ten-ounce bottles cost more per ounce but arrive at the glass at full strength, which for a mixer whose only job is fizz is the more economical choice. A large bottle that must be kept should be capped tightly, stored upright in the coldest part of the refrigerator and finished within a day or two.

Last modified on October 25, 2026