Introduction Ask for a highball at a bar in New York, and you will likely get a whisky and soda. Order one in Tokyo and a bartender might spend four minutes perfecting your drink with the seriousness of a surgeon. Walk into an Irish pub, and the word might mean something entirely different. One cocktail category, three continents, and well over a century of contradictions — and it remains one of the most ordered drinks in the world. So what is a highball drink exactly is a highball? The short answer is almost insultingly simple: it is a spirit mixed…