highball

A highball is whiskey and soda water in a tall glass. That is the entire recipe. The word appeared in American English in the 1890s, and its origin is debated. The leading theory connects it to railroad signaling: a raised ball on a pole (a 'highball') meant the track was clear and the train should proceed at full speed. A quick drink at a station bar — whiskey splashed with soda, no time to sip — was a drink for people in a hurry, a drink made at highball speed. The theory is plausible but unproven.

What is documented is that the highball became the standard American bar drink of the early twentieth century. Patrick Duffy, a bartender at the Ashland House in New York, claimed credit for popularizing it in the 1890s. The drink's appeal was speed and simplicity: two ingredients, no shaker, no muddling, no straining. A bartender could make a highball in the time it took to say the word. In an era when cocktails were growing more elaborate, the highball was a protest in a tall glass.

Japan adopted the highball with a precision that Americans never applied. Suntory, the Japanese whisky producer, promoted the whisky highball — haibōru — as the ideal accompaniment to food, especially in izakayas. Japanese bartenders specify the ratio (1:3 or 1:4), the type of ice (clear, hand-cut), and the stirring technique (exactly 13.5 turns, according to some). A drink Americans threw together became a drink the Japanese engineered.

The whisky highball's revival in the 2000s was driven largely by Japanese bars. Suntory's marketing campaign in the 2000s reversed decades of declining whisky sales in Japan by repositioning the highball as a social, food-friendly drink rather than an old man's solitary pour. The American railroad signal — if that is what it was — ended up on menus in Tokyo, Osaka, and eventually back in New York.