One thing I’ve started to realize about summer: It’s hot. I know, it’s brave (visionary even!) to put to words what everyone else has been too afraid to say. And as you’ve probably noticed, summer feels…even hotter than usual this year. Finding a beverage that’s truly refreshing is the difference between spending your day in a heated tizzy, and being at peace with the single bead of sweat slowly dripping all the way down your back. There is a superior solution to the chronic swamp butt that is late summer—more thirst quenching than coconut water, less cloying than Gatorade, and tastier than water: salted soda. Luckily, these sweet-savory drinks are all over restaurant menus this summer.
Ignacio Mattos’s Manhattan restaurant Altro Paradiso serves a limonatta frizzante that uses a house-made salted citrus cordial as a base, while, a few blocks away, sister restaurant Estela offers a thirst-quenching salted cucumber soda. Bar Margot in Atlanta also riffs on cooling cucumber, combining it with lime, hibiscus, soda, and, of course, salt, to create a satisfying sweet-sour drink. Jersey City’s Bread and Salt Bakery, meanwhile, is serving up a fresh salted lemonade (admittedly non-carbonated, but equally delicious). At the reopened Superiority Burger in New York, there’s a salt-cured umeboshi and pluot soda, and down the street, the cocktail bar Superbueno combines pickled plums, guajillo, lime, and salt, for a nonalcoholic soda with a kick.
Josh Hanover, bar director at Mattos’s Estela and Altro Paradiso, explains that the salt is not a gimmick, but the key to expressing other flavors more fully. These sodas rarely taste salty—the salt simply creates a “fresher, cleaner” taste in the soda, Hanover says. “Salted sodas are my number one bestseller on our nonalcoholic menus.”
The ingredients for these citrus-based sodas combine alchemically: bright fruit enhanced by the smack of carbonation, just enough sugar to soften the sharp acidic edges, and a pinch of salt to supercharge each flavor. Some salted sodas are assertive and straightforward—lemon, salt, and club soda—while others showcase refreshing, breezy flavors like cucumber. The result is a lightly sweet, bracing drink. It’s a simple but winning combination, which might explain why these fizzy refreshers are staking a claim on so many restaurant menus right now.
Any cold drink can feel like a relief on a hot day, but the electrolytes in salted sodas are what make them particularly refreshing. During especially hot days, we sweat out salt and other minerals which are collectively known as electrolytes. They help us regulate hydration and muscle control. Although drinking and eating salty things typically makes us more thirsty, after a big sweat, sipping a bit of salt helps to replace the minerals we’ve lost.
Salted soda, like almost anything good, is not new. Nimbu soda, a concoction of salt, lime, sugar, and soda, is a longstanding tradition in India. Nimbu sodas themselves are a variation on nimbu pani, which food writer Leena Trivedi-Grenier describes in a piece for NPR as “a sweet and salty lemonade or limeade that many Indians drink to stay hydrated during hot summers.” Nimbu sodas, she says, are typically a street food offering, made to order, and can feature all kinds of flavors—black pepper, ginger, and chili powder, among others—though the most important ingredient is black salt.
Salted sodas like those at Estela or Bar Margot don’t have the same spice component, but the hydrating, flavor-boosting salt and the invigorating kick of carbonation remain, making them a no-brainer for the hot, humid summer months. They’re incredibly popular—and ideal for daytime sipping since they don’t contain alcohol.
How much salt should you add to your homemade citrus soda? “Less than you think,” is Hanover’s advice. Start with a pinch and add more as needed, but stop before your drink starts tasting outright salty. If you’re feeling a little finicky, you can always turn to our faithful salted watermelon juice recipe for exact proportions. Or, if the idea of concocting your own salted soda in the middle of a scorching day is too much, head to your favorite cocktail spot—you never know where salted soda might pop up next.