long drink

is a category of mixed drink served in a highball or Collins glass, often over ice. As a technical term of mixology, “long drink” is chiefly British and European. It began, however, as a bit of early nineteenth-century American slang, applied to any tall, refreshing drink. In the 1870s, British bartenders began pairing it with “short drinks” in a binary classification of the new, American-style iced mixed drinks then coming into vogue. Among the American families of drinks that were lumped together under it were cobblers, coolers, fizzes, and juleps. This binary system became standard in Europe but never caught on in the United States.Long drinks typically are lower in ABV than short drinks, due to the amount of ice and mixers involved—often soda water or fruit juice of some kind. See soda water, fruit juice. Because they have an overall reputation as being light and refreshing, long drinks proliferate in warm-weather months. The archetypal long drink is the Tom Collins. See Tom Collins. Other classic examples include the Pimm’s Cup, Dark and Stormy, Gin and Tonic, Cuba Libre, and any number of simple highballs. See Pimm’s Cup; Dark, Stormy; Gin, Tonic; Cuba Libre;, Highball.

See also glassware.

Grimes, William. Straight Up or On the Rocks, 2nd ed. New York: North Point Press, 2001.

By: Robert Simonson