A Toki Whisky highball being professionally prepared (Source: House of Suntory)

 

There is a drink so culturally embedded in Japanese drinking culture that it might as well be Japan’s national cocktail. But it’s not really a cocktail either. It has no bitters, no vermouth, no muddled anything. It is just whisky, ice and soda water – sometimes a lemon peel, sometimes not. It arrives in a tall glass or a frosted beer mug and, for tens of millions of Japanese drinkers, it’s reached for as a reflex. The way an office worker in Shanghai reaches for Tsingtao, or a construction crew in Texas reaches for a Modelo, the Japanese salaryman – and increasingly the Japanese everyone – reaches for a highball.

But to call the Japanese whisky highball "just whisky and soda" is like calling sushi "just rice and fish." There is a surprisingly deep universe of technique, philosophy and cultural history behind its simplicity. You may not know that it is a drink that nearly died, was resurrected by a Japanese whisky company so effectively it became a case study, and now orbits outward from Tokyo into cocktail bars in London and Singapore. It is a drink with at least seven named variant serves, each with its own ritual. It carries the fingerprints of a Kyushu shochu tradition, a Ginza speakeasy, a Showa-era standing bar with jazz on the radio, and a laboratory in Aichi Prefecture where grain whisky is run through varying numbers of column stills to produce spirits of different weight for different purposes. Running through the center of the story, from 1899 to last Tuesday, is one whisky company: Suntory.

 

 

A spirit for Japanese tastebuds

The highball itself did not originate in Japan. But it became insanely fashionable thanks to a whisky maker who initially set out to make wine.

Shinjiro Torii was thirteen years old in 1892 when he became an apprentice at Konishi & Co., a pharmaceutical wholesaler in Osaka's Dosho-machi district, where he was first exposed to blended Western alcohol. By twenty, he'd founded his own shop, Torii Shoten, where he developed his first hit product – Akadama Port Wine, a sweet fortified wine specifically tailored to the Japanese palate.

 

Suntory's earliest Scotch-like whiskies did not fly off the shelves. (Source: The Japanese Bar)

 

His personal motto – yatte minahare, roughly "go for it, give it a try" drove him to build Japan's first malt whisky distillery at Yamazaki, on the outskirts of Kyoto, in 1923. He hired Masataka Taketsuru, a young chemist who had trained in Scotland, to run the operation. And in 1929, Kotobukiya (the company that would later become Suntory) released Suntory Shirofuda “White Label” - Japan's first genuine domestic whisky.

It bombed.

Suntory’s official website openly admits this as a formative lesson. Shirofuda was a faithful Scotch-style whisky, exactly the way Taketsuru believed whisky ought to taste. Torii, the man who had built a fortune by listening to Japanese palates, realised that this was wrong. The Japanese market preferred the subtle umami of sake and the gentle sweetness of well-made shochu.

The philosophical clash between Torii (adapt to Japanese palate) and Taketsuru (honor the Scottish tradition) eventually caused a divorce. Taketsuru left in 1934 to found his own distillery at Yoichi, which became Nikka. Torii stayed in Osaka and kept tinkering.

This change would lead everything that followed: Torii did not try to replicate the West in Japan. He adapted it. In 1937, he released the iconic product that would define Japanese bar culture: the Suntory Kakubin.

 

 

Kakubin, with its now-iconic tortoiseshell-patterned bottle, was lighter, softer, and deliberately designed around what Japanese people actually wanted to drink. Kakubin would go on to become the bestselling whisky in Japan by value, a position it still holds nearly ninety years later. And if you’re still worried that a neat hard liquor in a nosing glass was too much for the delicate Japanese palate, the Kakubin slowly became positioned to be stretched with ice and soda into a long, cold, sessionable drink.

The salaryman’s Tori-hai

By the 40s’, Japan as a society was familiar with the concept of highballs. Bars serving highballs existed from the early Shōwa period – the late 1920s and early 1930s. But before Suntory Kakubin came along, the highball still felt like a niche Western thing to the masses. The American occupation after World War II did help to stir the equation. GIs brought a taste for whisky, and their presence normalized Western drinking practices to an extent. Whisky slowly became modern, aspirational, a symbol of the new Japan looking outward.

Still, hard liquor was generally expensive in postwar Japan. During this time, a Suntory company executive named Kuminose Minosuke saw this problem and pitched an idea that would change the company’s fortune beyond his wildest dreams: a low-priced, casual stand bar centered on Suntory’s whisky – where they would mix one measure of whisky with soda to make a “luxury spirit” affordable. In the 1950s, a highball at a Torys Bar cost just ¥50. A gin fizz was ¥100. A whisky neat was ¥40. The highball was the sweet spot – more festive than straight whisky, half the price of a cocktail, and perfectly calibrated for Japan's emerging after-work drinking culture.

 

At one point not too long ago, Tory's Bars were everywhere.

 

Torys Bars became a runaway success story of Japan’s twentieth-century hospitality. The first one opened in 1950 in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. Suntory’s second president, Keizo Saji, gave this idea his full backing and the chain exploded. By the end of the 1950s, there were over a thousand; at their peak in the 1960s, approximately 2,000 organized Torys Bars operated across Japan with an additional constellation of, it is said, 35,000 independently owned bars that hung Suntory signage and served the brand's products without formal affiliation.

The absence of hostesses was a deliberate democratic gesture – these were not the hostess clubs (mizu shōbai) where businessmen performed their status. Torys Bars were for ordinary people. Standing counters and tall stools. Jazz playing in moody, dimly lit interiors that one chronicler described as choppiri yōfū – "a touch Western-style." The places where anyone could sip Western spirits like a cosmopolitan elite.

 

 

The Torys Bar drink of choice was the Tori-hai (also called "T-hai"), a Torys whisky highball served at roughly one part whisky to three or four parts soda. The T-hai's highly affordable price made it incredibly popular among all walks of life - especially young people who newly entered the workforce. By 1961, the aspirational campaign "Drink Torys and Go to Hawaii!" – at a time when overseas travel was a once-in-a-lifetime dream for most Japanese – demonstrated just how culturally embedded the brand had become.

 

 

The drink to replace beer toasts

The highball became the vehicle for whisky’s rise in Japan through the era of the Japanese Economic Miracle. Suntory pivoted from volume to premiumisation, actively promoting the Yamazaki 12 as a single malt and then launching its premium blend, the Hibiki. By the 1980s, whisky consumption in Japan hit approximately 381,000 kiloliters , or about 5.5 bottles per person a year. The fizzing of a whisky highball was soundtrack of the Japanese economic miracle, the lubricant of corporate culture, the drink of the salaryman in his prime.

When the economic bubble burst in the 90s’, whisky too, got caught in the wreckage. Suntory rolled with the punches. Through the 2000s, the company introduced a series of campaigns to reintroduce whisky to young Japanese drinkers again in the form of the highball.

The marketing team codified the technique into what they called the “3 + 1 Commandment” (Kodawari San-Kajō + 1):

1) Fill the jokki (beer mug) to the brim with ice

2) Pour chilled soda gently (preserve the carbonation)

3) Whisky 1 to Soda 4 ratio

4) Plus one: carefully squeeze some fresh lemon

 

 

These commandments were specifically calibrated for the right amount of sessionability. The resulting drink clocks in around 7–8% ABV – strong enough to feel like something, light enough to drink with dinner, throughout dinner, and after dinner. Suntory's internal research pinpoints 8% as the "sweet spot" for a first drink: close enough to beer strength, but with a whisky flavour profile that made it feel like a step up. Now, the positioning was slightly different – the highball was not cocktail but as a beer substitute, served in mugs like draft beer, designed to compete for the crucial first-drink position that beer had traditionally owned.

The millennial highball campaign outperformed expectations. The highball became a standard izakaya menu item – virtually every izakaya in Japan now offers it, as automatic as draft beer. Health-conscious younger drinkers gravitated toward its lower sugar, zero purine, lower calorie profile compared to beer. And the opening-drink ritual shifted. For decades, the dominant drink custom had been toriaezu bīru – "beer for now," the reflexive first order at any gathering. Suntory's campaign nudged this toward toriaezu haibōru – "highball for now."

For perspective, in 2007, domestic whisky consumption had cratered to barely one-sixth of the 1980s peak – distilleries operated at a fraction of capacity and many closed entirely. Within just two years, demand for whisky began to outstrip production capacity, forcing Suntory to impose shipping restrictions. The highball had once again saved Japanese whisky.

Seven different ways to put water in whisky in Japan

The classic whisky highball gets all the international attention, but it is only one point in a constellation of Japanese whisky-and-water serves – each with its own history, its own technique and its own philosophy.

Let’s take a look at every whisky-and-water serve popularised in Japan, where the question is never "neat or not?" but "how much water, what temperature, and by what method?"

 

1) Whisky Highball

(Source: Suntory Global Spirits)

 

The basic formula – whisky, ice, soda water – conceals an almost neurotic attention to detail.

The professional Japanese technique runs roughly like this. First, fill a tall glass with ice and stir it to frost the glass. Discard the meltwater. Then, top up the ice. Pour in whisky - typically 30 to 45 ml. Stir the whisky against the ice for about ten seconds, which chills it to near-soda temperature and prevents violent CO₂ loss when the carbonated water hits. Top up the ice again. Then, pour chilled soda water (preferably Schwepps soda for its fine carbonation) gently along the inside edge of the glass - never directly onto the ice. Finally, one single stir, a gentle vertical motion from bottom to top with a bar spoon.

 

Bartender Aki preparing a Toki Whisky highball at Pop City Singapore (Source: House of Suntory)

 

A great bartender knows just the right amount to stir a highball, and it is the stage where shokunin kishitsu (the spirit of the craftsman) enters what looks like the simplest drink in the world. Over-stirring releases CO₂ and makes the drink flat. Under-stirring leaves the whisky sitting heavy at the bottom. The ideal is a final upward lift that integrates the ingredients without agitating the carbonation.

The citrus squeeze is optional but not necessary and should be done with restraint – some may find that the rind bitterness could mask the underlying whisky aromas.

 

 

What is the ideal whisky-to-water ratio? According to Suntory’s Regional Brand Manager Andew Pang, the standard ratio in Japan is 1 part whisky and 4 parts soda. As mentioned, this yields a drink of roughly 7–8% ABV - the sweet spot Suntory identified during the 2008 highball revival.

In Western or international markets where drinkers prefer more whisky presence in the glass, the ratio tightens to 1:3, pushing the ABV closer to 10% and the whisky flavour further forward. Suntory's global recommendation for its Toki whisky uses this stronger 1:3 ratio.

We had the opportunity to enjoy a classic Japanese highball made at Suntory Toki’s official launch in Singapore. This is made with 3:1 soda to Suntory Toki whisky, with a grapefruit garnish. The green apple lifted into the carbonation, the creamy vanilla receded into a gentle backbone, and the Spanish oak pepper adds to this clean, dry finish. It was a supremely refreshing and sessionable drink.

 

 

We also tasted several modern riffs on the classic highball at Pop City Singapore – the newly-opened bar operated by the same people behind Jigger & Pony in collaboration with Suntory.

Bar programme manager Aki Eguchi presented his Yamanote Highball (available at Pop City Singapore at S$15 during happy hour!) – named after the Yamanote line of Tokyo’s circular railway which connects every important point of the city. This is made with Toki Whisky, a touch of orange blossom water, lemon peel and, topped with soda.

 

Aki Eguchi's Yamanote Highball at Pop City Singapore - made with Suntory Toki Whisky (Source: House of Suntory)

 

For ice, spear ice sits on the bottom, kachiwari (cracked) ice on top. The spear ice forms a long, dense, slow-melting column and maintains the drink's strength. The irregular, high-surface-area chunks fill the upper half and creates immediate dilution in the first sips. The effect is a drink that starts approachable, both highball and tea-like (the orange flower water gives it a floral, aromatic quality that reads as tea), and gradually reveals more whisky character as the cracked ice melts away and the spear ice takes over. It was designed, Aki explained, to introduce whisky to a drinker without killing the whisky flavour.

 

 

Kenta Arai who hails from Tokyo’s Bar Arai Tateguten was on guest shift, and his contribution was the most technically audacious. A dual-temperature highball that split the same measure of Toki Whisky into two portions. One frozen portion, one at room temperature – combined in a single glass with soda and no garnish at all. The frozen Toki expressed the fresher, fruitier, Hakushu-like notes that cold temperatures push forward; the room-temperature Toki carried the warmer Yamazaki sweetness and Chita smoothness that emerge at higher temperatures. Somehow the use of frozen whisky seemed to temper its aromatics but brought out much more flavour density on the palate.

 

2) Mizuwari (水割り) – Cut with Water

(Source: Suntory Global Spirits)

 

If the highball is the after-work pint, mizuwari is the long, slow, conversational drink – the serve most deeply embedded in Japanese drinking culture for the better part of fifty years. In Japan, it’s got the nickname mizuwari no joō (the queen of hostess clubs) and is strongly associated with the bottle-keep system at snack bars and hostess clubs in Japan.

The technique is more involved than it appears. The canonical bartender method prescribes filling a glass with ice, pouring one measure of whisky, stirring a golden count of 13.5 times, then adding cold mineral water at roughly twice the whisky's volume a ratio of 1:2 or 1:2-and-a half, and finishing with three gentle stirs.

The initial stirring chills the whisky against the ice before the water is added, which is critical: whisky generates some heat when mixed with water, and failing to pre-chill means the ice melts faster and the ratio shifts unpredictably.

The resulting drink sits at roughly 12–15% ABV - sake strength, and not coincidentally the same approximate strength as traditional shochu oyuwari in Kyushu. This is the culturally calibrated Japanese session strength: strong enough to feel celebratory, gentle enough for hours of conversation and food.

The water really matters too. Japanese bartenders are nearly unanimous in recommending soft mineral water (nansui, 軟水) – the natural water profile of most Japanese sources, typically 50–60 mg/L hardness. The ideal, according to several Japanese sources, is water from the same source as the whisky's production water – the mother water. Suntory's Yamazaki distillery sits on famously pure, soft water that Sen no Rikyū a famous 16^th century tea ceremony master, also chose for his tearoom. Hard water adds bitterness and a rigid mouthfeel that competes with the whisky's delicate esters.

 

2) Whisky Float (ウイスキーフロート水割り) - Unstirred Mizuwari 

(Source: Suntory Global Spirits)

 

A related but distinct serve is the whisky float: ice and cold water fill the glass first, and then around 20-30ml of whisky is delicately floated on top using the back of a bar spoon, without stirring – assembling a gradient drink.

I had the opportunity to have a taste of some Suntory Toki over iced soft spring water, and I have to say, the experience was revelatory.

 

 

Because whisky is less dense than cold water, it sits on the surface. The first sip hit as cold concentrated whisky – vivid, aromatic, almost neat – and each subsequent sip diluted progressively as the layers mixed. As you drink, you move through to an on-the-rocks phase into a fully diluted mizuwari.

 

3) Maewari (前割り) – Pre-Dilution in Advance

(Source: Hamada Syuzou)

 

Maewari or literally "pre-split" is the technique with the deepest roots in Japanese shochu tradition and the strongest claim to being genuinely indigenous rather than adapted from Western practice. It originated in the shochu culture of Kagoshima and the broader Kyushu region, where hosts would mix shochu with water the night before guests arrived, or even days in advance, as a gesture of omotenashi (hospitality).

Pre-mixing and resting allowed the spirit and water to integrate at a molecular level, producing a noticeably smoother drink.

The science supports the tradition. When ethanol and water are mixed, water molecules gradually surround and cluster around ethanol molecules, forming organized structures that reduce the perceived alcohol burn. Amphipathic flavour molecules - compounds like guaiacol that are partly attracted to and partly repelled by water - migrate to new positions within the liquid, some concentrating at the surface where they become more accessible to the nose.

A 2017 study demonstrated that diluting whisky from cask strength actually pushes flavour molecules toward the liquid-air interface, enhancing rather than diminishing aroma - up to a point. The longer the integration period, the more complete this molecular rearrangement becomes.

Traditional shochu maewari uses a ratio of about 4:4, 5:4 or 6:4 spirit to water, stored in a sealed glass bottle or a kurojoka - a traditional flat ceramic vessel. The maewari rests for one night to a week in a cool, dark place.

The application of maewari to whisky is more recent and less traditional, but it is happening. At Pop City in Singapore bartender Aki applies the maewari technique to whisky using a large tank, topped up daily in a continuous-batch method.

 

4) Oyuwari (お湯割り) – Cut with Hot Water

(Source: Suntory Global Spirits)

 

Oyuwari is the seasonal counterpart to the cold serves – a winter drink drawn from the same Kyushu shochu tradition that gave rise to maewari. The technique is minimalist: warm a heatproof glass, pour one part whisky, add two to three parts hot water at approximately 80°C (not boiling - boiling water volatilises alcohol aggressively and drives off delicate aromas!). A single gentle stir to integrate the drink.

The critical distinction from a Western hot toddy is what's not in the glass. As Mike Miyamoto, the former general manager of Suntory's Yamazaki and Hakushu distilleries explained, with oyuwari, you do not put anything else besides hot water. No sugar, no lemon, no honey, no spices. It is a warm showcase of the whisky itself, stripped of everything except heat and dilution. Japan already has its own warm medicinal drink – tamagozake, an egg and sake concoction – that fills the toddy's cultural role.

In some Japanese bars, a umeboshi (pickled plum) is dropped in as garnish.

 

5) Twice Up (トワイスアップ) – Cut with Room Temperature Water

(Source: Suntory Global Spirits)

 

Despite the very English sounding name, this is apparently a practice well-established in Japan among specialist whisky bars and whisky enthusiasts - especially for appreciating the more distinctive character of a Yamazaki Single Malt.

Because 40% ABV spirits aren't typical in Japan before Western spirits came along, diluting one party whisky with one part water yields a drink of roughly 20% ABV – closer to the familiar alcohol levels of sake and shochu.

There are dissenting voices in Japanese bar culture. Some bartenders argue that the Twice Up should not be considered a proper Japanese drinking style because it had simply originated as a whisky blender’s tasting method – akin to a chef sticking his finger in soup just to taste it. Indeed, Scotch whisky blenders tend to dilute their whisky down for analysis, so that they could pick up nuances not found in undiluted whisky.

Regardless of this debate, the Twice Up method is well-familiar with whisky enthusiasts in Japan even as it is not as traditional a drinking custom as mizuwari or oyuwari.

 

6) Half Rock (ハーフロック) – Cut with Water and Ice

(Source: Suntory Global Spirits)

 

Another relatively modern Japanese bar innovation, the Half Rock is made with 1:1 whisky to water with added ice – a sort of halfway point between on-the-rocks and mizuwari. Ordering a Half Rock at a Japanese whisky bar would probably earn you the same “I know it” credibility as if you would order a cortado at a speciality café.

Suntory’s official page for it describes this as a “stylish way to drink whisky, bringing out its aroma and flavour in a milder way”.

 

7) Mist (ミスト): Over Crushed Ice

(Source: Suntory Global Spirits)

 

This is another modern serve named for the condensation that forms on the glass. This is made by filling a glass with plenty of crushed ice, pouring in about 30 to 45 ml of whisky, before stirring well and then expressing a lemon peel over the drink.

Suntory recommends using milder whiskies for this serve – the herbal, forested character of a Hakushu would pair well with the rapid chilling.

 

8) (Bonus) Chuhai (チューハイ): Shochu Highballs

(Source: Ai Yoneda, Matcha-JP)

 

Suntory and other Japanese whisky makers dominate the highball narrative so completely that it is easy to forget that other Japanese producers exist in this space.

While not technically whisky, we should talk about the Chuhai that shares DNA with the whisky highball we know and love, but belongs to a parallel universe.

The name is a contraction of shōchū highball — 酎 (chū) from shochu, ハイ (hai) from highball - and the drink originally meant neutral shochu (kōrui) mixed with carbonated water and flavored syrups. Its birthplace was in the shitamachi (downtown) working-class bars of Sanya, Tateishi, and Yahiro in Tokyo, where in 1951 a bar owner named Okunogi Yūji, inspired by watching Westerners drink whisky highballs, created the original shochu highball.

 

Read all about the Suntory Strong Zero here!

 

The irony is rich that the 1980s chuhai boom – driven by RTD cans like Takara's Can Chūhai (1984) was one of the forces that devastated the Japanese whisky market during that period. The shochu highball, descended from the same Western spirit-and-soda format that Suntory had popularised in the 1950s, turned around and cannibalized the parent’s market.

Today, chuhai broadly refers to any spirit base (including vodka) mixed with soda and flavouring. The category's most notorious product is Suntory's own Strong Zero at 9% ABV that became a sweeping social phenomenon in Japan.

 

The drink that left the island

The Japanese highball's international journey has accelerated dramatically since the mid-2010s. Japanese whisky exports exploded since then and surpassed sake, with the United States is the largest export market.

Suntory has driven the international highball push with characteristic deliberation – and the Suntory Toki Whisky is deliberately designed for just that – a fantastic Japanese whisky to make a highball with. Toki was initially launched exclusively in the United States, with an attractive price point while sitting above entry point blends in quality. Toki’s more recent launch in Singapore and the rest of Asia represents a new phase in its expansion.

 

 

The highball trend has not gone unnoticed by Scotch producers. But the competitive landscape also reveals how thoroughly Suntory owns the format. No Scotch producer has matched the cultural depth of Suntory's campaigns. The Japanese highball is not just a recipe. It has a whole community and philosophy – a system of production, preferred ingredients, mixing technique, and cultural practice built over a century.

 

 

If you pay close attention to how the Japanese appreciate highballs, you’ll realise that the approach is fundamentally temporal – linked to the principle of mono no aware - “the awareness of impermanence”. A highball changes with every sip. A whisky float mizuwari changes as you swirl in the separated whisky. An oyuwari calms down as it cools. The drink unfolds over the minutes between the first pour and the last sip.

The sheer range of serving styles also speaks of a very Japanese approach to bar craft as a process that never finishes. Kaizen (改善) – the spirit of continuous improvement. The whisky, the carbonation, the ice, the ratio, the technique can all be made a little better every single time. And so exporting the recipe for a Japanese highball without using a Japanese whisky feels kind of like making sushi without sushi rice.

 

Kanpai!

@CharsiuCharlie