It’s not that difficult to make a great twist on a whisky cocktail. In this excerpt from our print article “Precision Pours” (from the Men’s Journal Fall 2026 Whiskey Special print edition), Kenta Goto, founder of the award-winning Bar Goto in New York, shows us a clever riff on a whisky highball.

What makes a great cocktail? I asked myself this question years ago when I was working on developing my first cocktail recipe as a bartender at Pegu Club , and I have returned to it continuously throughout my career. It goes without saying that all of a cocktail’s components should be balanced. But there’s more to it than that. A good cocktail is one you would want to return to and drink again, then again after. Having a great recipe to start is, of course, important, but it’s useless if you can’t execute it consistently.

Kenta Goto at Bar Goto Niban in Brooklyn, NY—the sister bar to Bar Goto in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.…