Octavia Spencer's 3-Ingredient Cocktail Has Red Wine Taste With Less Alcohol

On the list of the best cocktails that everyone should know, many entries are classic "m" drinks, like margaritas, martinis, mules, and mojitos. When home mixologists step outside the box, however, the results can be unexpected and delightful. Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer appeared on Food Network's "Family Recipe Showdown" competition show in mid-2025 and plied contestants with her signature drink, which she dubbed an "O'Timber." It consists of red wine, Diet Coke, and frozen strawberries. If that sounds unusual, keep in mind that it draws inspiration from a couple of other classic bevvies.

Red wine is delicious, but for some it can cause unpleasant headaches with a tendency to ruin your night. The beauty of the O'Timber is you get that rich, strong flavor of scarlet vino without the alcoholic equivalent of a kickboxing blow to the noggin. Spencer makes her drink with the best red wine she can source. How much Diet Coke you cut the wine with is up to you; it might be as generous as 50/50 or just a splash. The strawberries act as makeshift ice cubes while adding fruity sweetness.

Keen eyes will note that the O'Timber sounds an awful lot like a Spanish cocktail called a kalimotxo, which mixes Coke and red wine. Historically, the cola in a Kalimotxo masked the astringent taste of rotgut wine, though, over time, it came to be appreciated on its own merits and was concocted with better stuff. You can also see hints of a classic sangria in the O'Timber, thanks to the combination of fruit and wine.

On Reddit, one dumbfounded commenter made a post entitled, "No. Did Octavia Spencer just mix red wine with diet cola? If I did that, my husband would divorce me." A Facebook comment was equally judgy: "Um, diet coke & frozen strawberries in the best red wine you can find? Sorry, not! Also, a wine spritzer is not new." "Why would you ruin good red wine?" yet another dubious Facebooker wondered. Some intrepid users stated that they were open to trying something new, but they were largely drowned out by the doubters.

One statement is factually accurate, which is that spritzers of wine and cola aren't anything original. The silent coda to that fact is that they can be delicious and versatile. Another Spanish cocktail, Tinto de Verano, is named after summertime and gets its effervescence from equal parts red wine and citrus soda, like 7-UP or Sprite. With that in mind, we don't see why you couldn't sub the fruit in an O'Timber for frozen blackberries or juicy slices of lemon or play around with the soda. Orange cola, that beloved taste of childhood, would go well in a fruity cocktail, we think — or, for that matter, grape soda, which is a cheeky play on the fruitiness of wine. If your heart is in good shape, a fruit-flavored energy drink would add sparkle and pep to your cocktail, not unlike a Vodka Red Bull. If Octavia Spencer can have her own cocktail, now that you are familiar with the essence of mixing wine, soda, and fruit, we don't see why you shouldn't coin your own as well!