Tokyo Highball

It’s early evening in Shinjuku. Behind an unremarkable door and up a few flights of stairs is Hermit Bar, a dim windowless room with soft jazz playing from concealed speakers. Behind a counter polished to a diamond shine, two barmen in pressed white shirts are entered in a wordless choreography of pouring, mixing, and chopping blocks of pristine. One of them smiles and points to two empty stools. 

We order two whisky highballs, made with Suntory Yamazaki 12, and watch the pair return to their work.

Kodawari is the Japanese term for the pursuit of perfection. Whisky and soda, how special can it be? In Japan, like with many things, mixing together a few ingredients has been elevated into a high art, as well as something brilliant in its simplicity. 

“In Japan, we drink whisky with mixers,” says Suntory chief blender Shinji Fukuyo. “It’s our custom. It’s why typically Japanese whisky was drunk as ‘Mizuwari’, which means that you add water in a highball style.”

Convenience stores are stacked with galleries of colourful and intricately-designed cans, alongside separate shelves providing remedies for tomorrow’s (potential) hangover. Inside rowdy Izakayas, post-work highballs are slung into frozen glasses and downed alongside lots (lots) of cigarettes or, like our experience at Hermit, they are mixed with silent precision by men in white gloves and waistcoats. 

There are also plenty of alluring and possibly apocryphal rituals surrounding the highball. According to some corners they must be stirred exactly 13.5 times, which sounds good, doesn’t it? 

Masahiro Urushido, a cocktail master, the owner of Katana Kitten in New York, and the co-author of  The Art of the Japanese Cocktail recommends keeping a slim glass and a bottle of whisky in the freezer. Fill the glass with ice, add about just over a double shot of whisky, and then, holding it at an angle, slowly pour in chilled soda water. Don’t stir. It’ll mix on its own. Garnish with a lemon twist. Easy.

Back on the streets of Tokyo we duck into Dug Jazz Cafe and Bar, another Shinjuku institution, a faded sign leading down to a subterranean room: exposed brick walls and wonky furniture. A crowd of men in dark suits and loosened ties are propped up at the bar, chain-smoking and rattling through highballs which, here, are served in a short, thin glass with a brick of ice and no lemon, the sort of drink that can quickly become several if you’re not careful.

Over the course of our visit to Tokyo, we cram into Izakayas and yakitori restaurants, bars run by two friends with only space for a few more, pristine rooms on the seventh floor of office blocks, and karaoke rooms bathed in pink neon light looking out towards the chaos of Shibuya. There are some bad highballs sampled along the way, but plenty more transcendent ones. 

“A highball like a martini has minimal ingredients,” Urushido.

 “If it’s done right, it’s like art, simple and beautiful.”