As the clock approached 12 p.m. on a Sunday, my late grandmother would start looking expectant. That meant it was whisky and soda time, and woe betide you if you were late with her drink. She came of age in the 1930s, when the whisky and soda, also known as the highball, was the modish drink of bright young things on both sides of the Atlantic. I stuck to wine. For me, highballs were an old person's drink. It was only long after she had died at the ripe old age of 93 that I realized my grandmot...
