Bourbon Highball
Bourbon, soda, restraint
The American highball, stripped to essentials: cold dilution lets bourbon's vanilla and oak surface without alcohol burn, and lemon peel oils brighten the finish. Quiet, almost meditative — built to drink with food, not to impress.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 oz Bourbon
- 4 oz Soda Water
Method
Fill a chilled highball glass with cold ice. Add bourbon. Top gently with cold soda water. Stir once. Express lemon peel over the drink and drop it in.
The Bourbon Highball is the bourbon expression of the highball template — a spirit lengthened with a carbonated mixer over ice — not a distinct drink with its own origin. The highball is documented from the 1890s: the term appears in an 1894 play, with an early written recipe in C.F. Lawlor’s The Mixicologist (1895). Patrick Gavin Duffy claimed to have introduced it to America in 1895 (New York); Tommy Dewar claimed 1891; the name is variously traced to period glass slang or railroad signaling. Per Difford’s Guide (Highballs). Notes: no single creator; the bourbon variant simply uses American whiskey in the established template — the previously-drafted Jacques Straub 1913 attribution could not be substantiated and is not asserted.