Get to Know

The whisky trade has attracted a full, if not overflowing, cup of outsized personalities, and Tommy Dewar was certainly one of them. Charming, bold, and a little eccentric, his salesmanship and marketing savvy coupled with years of tireless travel helped build Dewar’s into what is still one of America’s most popular Scotch whiskies today. During the 1890s, Dewar erected what was the biggest animated sign in Europe at the time by London’s Waterloo Bridge, as well as put the first motion picture ad on a New York rooftop. He might also have been the inventor of the classic Highball.

As one of the simplest and most refreshing cocktails, the Highball calls for mixing a base spirit with twice or more as much soda, perhaps some ice, and a garnish, and then served in a tall glass. Dewar’s, with its trademark honey sweetness and crisper citrus and pear notes, is a natural choice for a Scotch and Soda Highball.

Just as bourbon-maker Colonel James E. Pepper is credited as the creator of the Old Fashioned, Tommy Dewar is often credited as the creator of the Highball. While out on one of his many sales travels in 1892, Dewar ordered a “ball” (“drink”) of his whisky. When it was brought to him, he asked for a taller glass, along with some soda and ice. Although the first printed reference to the Highball was in 1895 in C.F. Lawlor’s The Mixicologist, the book doesn’t conflict with the tale naming Tommy Dewar as the Highball’s creator. John Dewar & Sons trademarked the drink in the UK in 1902, and newspaper stories attributing its creation to Tommy Dewar began appearing in 1905.

Others claimed to have invented the Highball. Patrick Duffy, an esteemed bartender in New York in the 1890’s, claimed English actor E.J. Ratcliffe brought the mixer to America in 1894. Likewise, Highballs aren’t always made with Dewar’s. The Highball craze in Japan is centered firmly on its own national spirits, and Winston Churchill, famous consumer of Highballs, preferred other blended whiskies.

Yet Dewar’s Scotch whisky has a character well-suited to a simple Highball: flavorful enough to withstand dilution in twice its volume of soda water, while light, sweet, and fruity enough to belie the reputation that Scotch sometimes has for being heavy, smoky and moody. It’s easy to imagine why Tommy Dewar would take his own whisky in this way: as an easy-drinking, effervescent mixer that suits almost any occasion. Insofar as whether Dewar invented the Highball or not, he at least played a major part in popularizing it. A man of Dewar’s verve would have agreed with John Ford’s line, “When legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

THE CLASSIC DEWAR’S HIGHBALL

INGREDIENTS

1 part Dewar’s White Label Blended Scotch Whisky


3 parts soda water


Lemon twist (for garnish)

PREPARATION

Combine ingredients in a Highball glass over ice. Garnish with a lemon twist.