One Of Julia Child's Favorite Beverages Was An Uncommon 3-Ingredient Drink

Julia Child's ingenuity lives on with her easy Angosoda cocktail. Significantly less potent than her famous Upside-Down Martini, this is a fantastic low ABV option for when the hair of the dog is perhaps a hair too much. A beloved concoction of bar flies everywhere, you've probably tried this drink in an effort to settle an upset stomach. All you need are Angostura bitters, sparkling water, and a lime wedge. That's it! You should use Perrier to stay true to Child's love affair with the French, but any sparkling water works. A few dashes of the bitters are all that's needed to take a dull soda water with lime to a complex and earthy drink that teeters the line of mocktail and cocktail.

Angostura is a notable brand and type of aromatic bitters. What originated as a medicinal tincture, bitters are a highly condensed mixture of botanicals that have been infused into a neutral distilled spirit. On the cusp of the Golden Age of Cocktails, Angostura's aspirations shifted from a medicinal focus to an alcoholic one. Fundamental to the art of a great drink, bitters are akin to a bartender's seasoning. 

Dive or more casual bars will have at minimum Angostura or Peychaud's, but the range of bitters carried in craft bars expands significantly. You can tweak Julia Child's Angosoda with whatever bitters your heart desires. Rather than Angostura with a lime wedge, try grapefruit lavender bitters with a lemon wheel. Or keep the lime and try it with cherry bitters.

Since bitters use neutral spirits as a base, they technically contain alcohol with an ABV (alcohol by volume) similar to other distillates like tequila and vodka. Angostura specifically has an ABV of 44.7% and its addition to any drink, like Child's Angosoda, prevents the beverage from being considered truly nonalcoholic.

However, the increased demand for low-ABV options has given way to more and more cocktail bars having a sessional section on menus. Julia Child's Angosoda would fall under that umbrella. Many sessional cocktails feature vermouths and aperitifs as the main ingredient along with a type of bitters — remember, for seasoning. There are now a plethora of options when it comes to curating your own low abv or non-alcoholic beverages. To stay completely alcohol free, some companies are now creating non-alcoholic versions of aromatic bitters so those who avoid alcohol completely can enjoy beverages like Julia Child's Angosoda.