Any bartender can easily tell what highball is. The cocktail, which is so called, has certain characteristics and significant differences.
Classification Features
Among the huge number of mixed drinks, highball is especially common. A cocktail usually has a very specific composition. In this case, it is better to talk about the required components. In general, highball is not a specific product, but a whole category. It includes drinks that consist of two or more ingredients. And the first of them is any strong alcohol. The following products may act as a second:
- mineral water;
- juices;
- soft drinks ;
- champagne and others.
Their number may be different, but most often during cooking it is customary to adhere to a proportion when the first and second components are in a ratio of 1: 4. Highball is a cocktail that is familiar to many.
Among the large list there are such world famous as Brandy Cola, Bloody Mary, Gene Tonic, Screwdriver and others. They are easy to distinguish from the rest. Firstly, they are always served in special glasses of the same name. Secondly, it is a cocktail in which one component is mixed with another through gas bubbles.
Drink history
Often people ask, where did such an unusual name come from? Who invented this drink, and for what reasons did the author give it such a name? In the twenties of the last century, Americans even conducted a whole investigation into this matter. After long trials, they came to the conclusion that highball is a cocktail, the discoverer of which is New York bartender Patrick Duffy. It happened somewhere in 1895. As the main ingredients, he used liquor and soda water. A little later, his followers began to add bitter strong alcohol to the drink. This made it possible to significantly expand the assortment list and give free rein to the imagination of bartenders. Among other things, fans of an effervescent product were constantly tormented by the question, why was it given such a name? It turns out that there is a direct connection with the railway. The word itself is translated from English as "fast train." In those years, a worker on the tracks gave the engineer a signal of departure using a special rod in the form of a circle and a small pen. Then he, too, began to be called highball.
Vivid example
How to make a real highball (cocktail). The recipes for making such drinks are very similar to each other. They change only the components and decoration elements. In the recipe, as you know, there should be two components: alcohol and bubbly. And they are all prepared as follows:
- In a highball glass, you need to put 4-5 ice cubes.
- Pour 50-75 milliliters of alcohol.
- Add any gas-containing drink so that the contents almost reach the edge of the dishes.
- Garnish the product with a slice of citrus.
- Drink through a straw.
For example, consider a cocktail recipe called “Bacardi Bak.”
It includes:
50 milliliters of white rum, 15 milliliters of Cointrreau liquor, half a lemon and 120 milliliters of ginger ale.
Cooking is carried out according to standard technology:
- You need to take a tall glass and put in it only a few ice cubes.
- Add all the products in the following order: rum - liquor - lemon juice - ale.
After that, it remains only to mix the contents, and you can drink even without a straw.