The Apple Highball, Three Ways

We first met the apple highball in its Japanese form — whisky, clear apple juice, soda, a glass so cold it hurt — and we’ve been quietly making converts ever since. It’s the drink we hand people who say they don’t like whiskey. They always come back with an empty glass and a question.

There are really three apple highballs. Different eras, different bottles, same welcoming idea.

The Japanese one

This is the version having a moment, and it earned it. One part Japanese whisky (or any smooth blend) to three parts sparkling apple juice, or still apple juice topped with soda water. Tall glass packed to the top with ice, one gentle stir, done.

What makes it work is restraint. Clear apple juice, not cloudy cider, so the drink stays light and glassy. A whisky that doesn’t shout. Lots of carbonation. It’s closer to a session drink than a cocktail, which is precisely the appeal; Japanese highball culture treats the drink as a food companion, and apple happens to flatter fried and salty things wonderfully.

If you keep bourbon around instead, it works — the classic bourbon highball is this drink’s American grandfather, and there’s a whole family of highballs once you start looking. Sweeter, cozier, still right.

The applejack one

Long before Japan perfected it, America had the Applejack Highball — apple brandy lengthened with ginger ale, sometimes with a little orange juice and grenadine riding along. Applejack is apple distilled rather than apple added, so the fruit arrives as aroma and warmth instead of sweetness.

Our house version: two ounces of applejack or apple brandy, ginger ale to fill, lemon twist. The ginger matters here the way soda matters in the Japanese build — ginger ale earns its keep with darker, older-fashioned spirits.

This is the one to make when the evening calls for something with a past.

The cider one

Come October we switch the juice for dry hard cider and stop pretending it’s not fall. Two ounces of bourbon or spiced rum, hard cider to fill, a squeeze of lemon so it doesn’t go flabby. A cinnamon stick if you’re feeling seasonal, and honestly, when spiced rum is involved we usually are.

Hard cider brings its own carbonation and a gentle funk that plain juice can’t, and the drink lands somewhere between a highball and a mulled thing served cold. Friends who visit in autumn now request it by name, which is the only endorsement that counts.

The small things that make it better

Chill everything. The glass, the juice, the soda. A highball dies warm faster than any drink we know. Fill with more ice than seems reasonable; a full glass melts slower than a half-full one, which feels backwards and isn’t.

And go easy on garnish. A thin apple fan looks lovely and adds a scent of orchard as you sip. A caramel rim adds regret.

Start Japanese, drift toward applejack as the nights cool, and let the cider version carry you to Thanksgiving. By then it will have a nickname in your house too.

Last modified on August 30, 2026