Super fizzy and ice cold, highballs are an exercise in simplicity
Featuring spirit ideas and bar recommendations for the city’s most understated sippers
The highball is simple on paper: a high-quality spirit, ice and soda. But the drink is greater than the sum of its parts. Serious bartenders like to fuss over the details. The glass should be slender to preserve carbonation. Soda is selected based on salt content and CO2 levels—in other words, the regular canned corner-store variety won’t do. If possible, a long spear of hand-cut ice is best, so it fits snug in the glass and melts at a glacial pace. Good highballs are a refined and much less sweet version of a whiskey soda. They’re everywhere in Japan (even available in cans at 7-Eleven stores), and now they’re having a moment in Toronto.
At 915 Dupont, a Japanese listening bar west of Ossington, highballs make up more than two-thirds of the daytime cocktail menu. “They’re easy to make and easy to drink,” says owner Nigel Wang. His are straightforward, featuring things like whiskey, shochu and palm wine with house-carbonated filtered water.
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At Overpressure Club, a new cocktail bar across from Christie Pits, highballs are served over a long spear of ice with a top-up of bubbly water (owner Alfred Siu says Fever-Tree’s works the best). It all helps to open up the delicate flavours of the dozen Japanese whiskeys available. Warning: highballs go down easy, like pop, but pack a sneaky punch.
Three spirits best topped with sparkling water
No Regret Sweet Potato Shochu Do as the Japanese do and build your highball with shochu, a slick, silky, umami-driven spirit. This version highlights purple sweet potato, which adds floral, creamy notes. $48.95, lcbo.com
Roku Gin This gin leans on Japanese botanicals, including sakura flower, sencha tea, sansho pepper, gyokuro (a green tea) and yuzu peel. It’s best in a highball but also adds oomph to a negroni, martini or G&T. $54.95, house.suntory.com
Suntory Toki In Japan, Suntory highballs are ubiquitous—available everywhere from serious cocktail bars to 7-Elevens. The oldest whiskey producer in Japan, Suntory makes Toki by blending its higher-end Hakushu and Yamazaki single malts with grain whiskey. $63.95, house.suntory.com
More places to get fizzy
Mhel: This Korean-Japanese restaurant has just one—maybe two—cocktails on the menu at any given time, and it’s almost always a highball, as the neutral notes let their small plates shine.
Sakai Bar: A tight cocktail program focuses on all the highball hits: Topo Chico with Suntory or umeshu, the Five Alive Chu-Hi (a citrusy shochu highball), and a Collins made with yuzu sake and gin.
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Kate Dingwall is a writer, author and photographer covering spirits, business, culture, fashion and travel. By night, she’s a working sommelier. She has worked with Flare, Food & Wine, Wine Enthusiast, Maxim, People, Southern Living, Rolling Stone, Eater, Elle, Toronto Life and the Toronto Star, among other publications. She frequently appears on both CTV and NPR, has co-authored a book on gin, judges Food & Wine’s Tastemakers and has strong opinions on the city’s best martini.
