The Easiest Tricks to Make Homemade Whiskey Highballs Taste Professional (Hint: Your Whiskey Isn’t the Problem)

One of the oldest whiskey drinks is one of the simplest: a highball. Starting in the late 1800s, people began combining whiskey and club soda, and basically never stopped. 

While this drink only has two ingredients, making a stellar highball actually takes some forethought. Most people focus on selecting the right whiskey, but don’t spend much time thinking about the carbonated water, which is a big mistake. Carbonated water actually varies quite a bit from brand to brand, including the level of carbonation and the mineral content. Some come from natural springs and are naturally carbonated, while others come from springs and are force carbonated. There are also a number of club sodas that are just filtered tap water with added CO2. 

Brands like Badoit are known for being mildly carbonated, while others like Topo Chico and Saratoga are decidedly super bubbly. The Italian S. Pellegrino has a reputation for its small, crispy bubbles.  

When it comes to the mineral content, some soda waters have very pronounced flavors; some liken it to chewing a silty Tums or gargling ocean water. Mountain Valley Spring water tastes like a waterfall smells. Gerolsteiner, which is from Germany’s volcanic Eifel region, has tons of minerals and can taste a bit like liquid chalk. Spanish brand Vichy Catalan is super salty; the warmer it is, the saltier it tastes. 

Gerolsteiner and S. Pelligrino have total dissolved solids (TDS) counts of more than 1000 mg/l, while Topo Chico and Mineragua are half that. Mountain Valley Spring and Saratoga are even lower. 

But just because a water tastes good or bad on its own doesn’t mean it will make a similarly good- or bad-tasting highball—it's quite the opposite in some cases!

Highball Secrets From Professional Bartenders

Jamies Minier, brand ambassador for Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey and owner of cocktail event company Bar Clandestino in Puerto Rico, has thoughts on what carbonated water to use in a highball.

“Perrier has a nice balance with medium minerals, crisp acidity, and steady bubbles that hold up. Topo Chico hits harder on carbonation, feels cleaner, and has a slight mineral snap,” he says. “Fever Tree Club Soda is the most neutral with fine bubbles and almost no flavor, just texture. S. Pellegrino leans heavy on minerals and the bubbles are softer, which can flatten the drink a bit.” 

Minier says, a “good highball water is about carbonation that lasts, and minerality that complements, not competes. Low to medium mineral content usually lets the whisky lead, while higher mineral content gives structure but can change the tone.”

Of course, opinions vary as to the best carbonated water for highballs. 

Jennifer Colliau, bar director at Roses on Adeline and owner of Small Hand Foods syrup company, has given a lot of thought to it. “I like something with a high mineral content and large bubbles, which are contradictory,” she says. Searching for that rare combination, she once even made her own soda water from scratch, which was carbonated in a keg.

How to Choose the Right Water

Should you want to get really nerdy about your soda water, you could look up the mineral content (TDS) of nearly every water brand. It's typically listed on a brand’s websites in the “water quality report” section, which is often found at a link near the bottom of the page. Or you could check the website FineWaters.com that describes waters from all over the world. The site lists whether a water’s carbonation is “classic,” “bold,” or “effervescent” and rates the minerality from “super low” to “very high.” 

But it’s more fun to buy a bunch of sparkling waters at the grocery store and taste them with your favorite whiskey. You may find that your favorite brand of soda water makes your whiskey taste terrible, and the least exciting one makes the best highball.

Related: The Secret Amsterdam Company Behind Your Favorite Craft Rum Brands

Perfecting the Whiskey Highball  

There are also a number of small details that will directly affect how your highball tastes, which you should consider.

Garnish

Many bars add a little piece of lemon peel right before they serve a highball. It might seem gratuitous, but the garnish really brightens up the drink. It adds a hint of the essential oils in the peel to the drink. After rinsing the fruit, you can peel a strip off the lemon or just chop off a coin-sized disk with a paring knife. (Try to avoid keeping too much of the white pith on the back of the peel, since it has a bitter flavor.) Give the peel a squeeze over the drink to release the oils, then drop it into the glass. 

Glassware

Most bars serve a highball in a Collins glass. That’s a great choice, since it has a narrow opening, which means less surface area for the carbonation to fizz off, so that your cocktail stays fizzy for longer.  

Ice Cubes

While extra-large ice cubes are all the rage in cocktail bars, bigger is not better when it comes to carbonated drinks. The boring, regular-sized cubes that pop out of your ice maker or freezer trays allow room for the fizz of the drink to pop on the surface. Just make sure the ice isn’t stale. It can absorb freezer and fridge smells, so keep it rotating.

Small ice like shaved ice or tiny cracked ice, which is typically used in a cooler, is the worst for fizzy drinks. It blocks the surface of the drink and doesn’t allow the carbonation to do its thing. You just end up sticking your lips into a slush puddle. 

Temperature

And finally, make everything cold. Keep the sparkling water refrigerated before use so it doesn’t over-dilute the drink when you add ice to it. If you want to go into full mixology mode, keep your highball glasses in the freezer, your whiskey in the fridge, and tilt the glass when you pour the soda in to retain as much carbonation as possible. In some Japanese bars, where whiskey highballs are serious business, they keep everything so cold that some don’t use ice at all.