Antonia DeBianchi is an Associate Editor, Food & Lifestyle, at PEOPLE.
Tom Hanks is spilling all the details on his very own inventive cocktail.
This week, the Academy Award winner appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and introduced a new “Hanks family tradition” — a questionable bubbly cocktail.
Hanks set the scene, describing how he was at his wife Rita Wilson‘s show in New York City at Café Carlyle when a “celebratory bottle of champagne [was] brought by.”
"I'm not a big drinker, so I usually have a diet Coke," he said. "So I have a little bit of caffeine, Diet Coke in a glass, and I sip that through the night."
But on this particular occasion, the A Man Called Otto star indulged in a drink with extra bubbles.
“They brought the champagne around, they brought the nice foods,” he said of the Manhattan spot. “It was like the last episode of The Bachelor, pouring all this stuff around, and I just had this Diet Coke. And I said, ‘Oh give me a shot of champagne in there for crying out loud.'”
Unsurprisingly, mixing a bit of bubbly in the soda turned heads. "Everybody said, 'You are insane. I said, 'Well I may be insane, but I want to celebrate the season,'" he said, adding his satisfactory review of the drink. "Stephen, it was delicious."
Colbert then took out a pair of glasses filled with ice as Hanks explained that the drink can include “any Cola product” as long as it’s diet since he has type 2 diabetes. “What’s better [for] type 2 diabetes than a little shot of champagne in your Diet Coke,” he quipped.
The pair toasted to a "Happy 2023" as Colbert took his first sip. And much to viewers' surprise, he actually enjoyed it. "We have the Tom Collins, we have the Tom Hanks," the late night host joked.
Hanks took pride in the actual name he coined for the unorthodox drink. "We were debating what the name of it should be, and I came up with it because it is coke and it's champagne, so it's obviously diet 'cokagne,'" he said, being sure to spell it out because it is a homonym.
Colbert was almost ashamed to admit how much he liked the cocktail. "It's really strangely, strikingly, shamefully good because it's so refreshing. You give that little caffeine, too. Just keep you going through that champagne," he told Hanks.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Colbert isn't the only TV personality who Hanks managed to win over with the cocktail.
On Wednesday, Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager tried the fizzy concoction on TODAY with Hoda and Jenna. And neither were convinced of the bubbly blend before they took a sip.
"I'm not interested in this,' Hager said. "Diet Coke and champagne?"
As Kotb topped off their glasses, they both took a sip. “It’s kind of good,” Kotb said.
Hager also changed her initial review. "I'd like to apologize publicly," she said. "Tom Hanks can do anything.
