Drinking wine with meals might be growing in popularity with the Japanese but it is still far from being the normal tipple. Takeshi Niinami, the newly appointed president of the Japanese spirits and brewing conglomerate Suntory Holdings Ltd,
in a recent interview pointed out that “people in Japan drink highballs” instead of wine with their meal.
While it’s a bit hard to enjoy a good meal with an overpowering glass of whiskey alone, says Ninami, a highball — a mixture of whiskey and soda water - not only makes the whiskey last longer, it also makes it much more food-friendly. Eventually, as Japanese whiskey is marketed more aggressively in America, Niinami says “the highball will prevail in this country, too.” And he adds that the highball is the perfect complement to sushi.
