Tag: highball

A highball is roughly nine-tenths water, and almost all of that water arrives carbonated. Carbonation is not a neutral delivery system — it lowers pH, recruits a genuine taste pathway, and changes how aroma leaves the glass. Here is what the CO₂ actually does, why the soda's mineral content matters more than its bubbles, and what a bar or a bottler should specify.

A Manhattan is half water by the time it reaches the guest, and a highball is closer to nine-tenths. In a single serve the ice adds that water invisibly; the moment a bar batches, pre-dilutes or puts a drink on tap, someone has to pour it in deliberately — which makes water the one ingredient on the back bar that nobody specs and everybody serves.