Is it just us, or is everyone in Japan right now? While our feeds are flooded with cherry blossoms and listening bars, we’re all about chasing our Nippon fix on home turf. And Suntory Toki Whisky is making it easy, teaming up with 10 Sydney venues in April and May to present their spins on the signature Toki Highball, alongside one-off small plates designed to pair perfectly with the drink.

There’s a different pairing to try at every venue, but each is designed to maximise the flavours of a traditional Toki Highball. This Japanese classic builds on its Toki Whisky base – which is slightly sweet with a bit of a spice, plus notes of green apple and honey – with a topping of premium soda water and a citrus twist.

The offer at sleek Chinatown bar Bancho is generous: a signature Suntory Toki Whisky Highball and dashi chips for just $15. It’s doing multiple spins on the highball, too; options include lychee, lime and soda; watermelon, lemongrass and soda; and Calpico (a sweet Japanese drink, not unlike Yakult), lime and soda. Plus, it’s pulling together another three bespoke Toki Whisky cocktails (all $24) to really sweeten the deal: the Ume Old Fashioned, with Amaro Averna, plum kaju liqueur, honey and Angostura bitters; the Hakato Peach with spiced kumquat syrup, lemon and egg whites; and the Matcha Choco, which features green tea umeshu (plum liqueur), crème de cacao and coconut, and is clarified with “matcha cake milkshake”.

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At the buzzy Tokyo Bird in Surry Hills, for $20 you can get a classic Toki Highball paired with a choice of two bao from three options: chicken karaage with pickled cucumber and chilli mayo, crisp calamari with chimichurri and yuzu mayo, or fried tofu with coleslaw and hoisin. It has also crafted three Toki Whisky cocktails to round out the celebration: the Momoji (peach, Lillet Blanc, orange blossom, lemon, egg whites and soda); Toki Doki (Pimento Dram, salted plum, caramelised pineapple, lime and peated whisky mist); and the milk-washed Bossu (coffee, chocolate bitters, corn syrup and nutmeg). Not too far away, at Ito, diners can sip on the classic highball for $18 or mix things up with a $20 Toki Sour. Both make a vibrant counterpoint to Ito’s flavour-bomb pickled zucchini spiked with shiso and la-yu chilli oil.

Haymarket’s two-storey bar and restaurant Ennui may be French-accented, but it’s leaning into Suntory’s Japanese heritage with its pairing: duck tsukune (skewered meatballs) with egg yolk and shiso, along with a classic Toki Highball for $25. Over at cosy Moku, you can again pick up that traditional Toki Highball, plus two Sydney rock oysters with finger lime and ponzu, all for $30.

And there’s a lot happening over at Prefecture 48 in the CBD. Suave cocktail bar Whisky Thief is doing two Toki-based highballs: the Mugen, with 10-year-old umeshu and salt plum syrup, and the Hinode, with grapefruit cordial and hojicha (charcoal-roasted green tea). Each cocktail is $26 – and, from April 1 to May 10, each order comes with a free paired snack of sansho gravlax with potato aioli on grilled bread. At the complex’s open-flame Japanese diner Ibushi, you can sip the Chie Highball, which adds matcha saké and sugar to the Toki and soda, or the Shibuya Highball – a fun mixture of puffed rice-infused whisky with cream soda. It pairs perfectly with a snack of prawn tsukune with tarragon mayonnaise and puffed rice. Like at Whisky Thief, the cocktails are $26 but for six weeks the snack is on the house.

The inner city doesn’t have dibs on all the good deals, though. At Double Bay’s sexy Japanese diner Tanuki, you can grab that Toki Highball with a salmon or coral trout nigiri for a solid $35.

Ora, the high-end omakase and cocktail lounge in a Waterloo warehouse, is getting in on the highball hijinks too, with two specials. It’s offering a Toki Highball with a grapefruit twist, paired with a refreshing salmon ceviche salad that adds Asian greens, baby coriander, jalapeno and fried leek to the fish in its spicy lemon dressing for $30. It’s also mixing up a Koji Sour cocktail with Toki Whisky, white-miso syrup and liquorice bitters. That’s a great match for the bar’s yangnyeom-chikin, Korean-style fried chook with a sweet and spicy gochujang sauce for $32.

Finally, North Sydney’s Genzo is serving its take on the Toki Highball alongside chicken wings with barley, tonburi (summer cypress seeds known as “land caviar”) and black vinegar for $22.

These pairings are only available between April 1 and May 31 – so get in soon.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Suntory Toki Whisky.