THE GLASS IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE LIQUID IT CONTAINS. AS WELL AS LOOKING GOOD, THE SHAPE, STYLE, MATERIAL, WEIGHT, AND BALANCE OF A GLASS CAN AFFECT THE WAY WE PERCEIVE A DRINK AND THE WAY ITS FLAVORS TRAVEL ON OUR PALATES. THAT’S WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO SERVE PARTICULAR DRINKS IN PARTICULAR GLASSES.
Glassware is a big bartending trend. I’m not alone in scouring flea markets, vintage shops, and the Internet for the best examples. In my own personal collection, I have some beautiful Victorian crystal cocktail glasses, but in my eyes cocktail glassware from the 1920s and ’30s is the most beautiful.
Man has been making glass for more than 5,000 years, though for the first few millennia it was traded and treasured as luxurious decorations and jewelry rather than for drinking. But glassware flourished in the Roman and Greek empires, and it was Venice that came to be renowned for its intricate and ornate glassware. You probably know the style—you can see it in everything from chandeliers to ornaments: the more complicated the design, the more it suggested personal wealth and sophistication.
While you can still see glassware hand-blown in the islands off Venice, the more utilitarian crystal glassware—a style first popularized in England and that balances esthetics and function—is the standard, even today.
How many types of glassware should a modern bar stock? Looking back at the great cocktail books, answers vary: Harry Johnson suggests more than thirty types; eighteen are recommended by Embury; and the Esquire Handbook suggests just five.
For my bars. I have my own glassware custom made. The emphasis is on elegance, balance, and a design appropriate to the drink being served in it. With large glass manufacturing companies demanding production runs in the thousands, having your own glasses made simply isn’t an option for most bars, but I’d say you need 10–12 types of glass to cover practically every drink in this book, and you could probably survive with fewer.
GLASS ESSENTIALS
COCKTAIL GLASS: either a traditional V-shaped Martini glass or a more fashionable coupe/coupette can take practically any drink that’s designed to be served straight up. Just make sure yours holds no more than 4–5 oz (that’s 12–15 cl). In the 1990s, we liked 7 oz (21 cl) glasses but today that’s simply too big: the glass tends to be filled up only halfway, and who wants half a glass? Coupettes tend to be even smaller, reflecting the old days when drinks were never served in quantities more than 3 oz (9 cl). Said to be modeled on the shape of Marie-Antoinette’s breasts, these are shallower and can appear more refined. But it’s the V-shaped martini glass that has become the international symbol of cocktails everywhere. They are thought to have debuted at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925.
HIGHBALL: there are many stylish options for highballs—what you are looking for ideally is an 11 oz (33 cl) size. Any bigger and the drink can become overdiluted as the ice melts. It’s a classic example where less is more—after all, you want the last sip to be as good as the first one. The name “highball” is thought to derive from the way Vikings would drink out of bowls—their “high bowls” were made of glass.
TUMBLER/OLD-FASHIONED: this masculine glass needs a chunky base because it should feel heavy: it gives you the feeling you are holding something important, that what you are drinking deserves respect. Opt for crystal if possible. Originally tumblers were round-bottomed, owing to rudimentary production techniques, and you would drink the contents of your glass in one gulp because you couldn’t put it down. Not recommended when drinking fine spirits! This is arguably the only glass specifically created with a particular cocktail in mind—its thick bottom could withstand the muddling of a sugar cube when making an Old Fashioned.
CHAMPAGNE FLUTE: I prefer flutes to saucers as I believe they preserve the fizz longer. A good flute projects elegance and extravagance, and it should have a slender stem.
WINE GLASS: when I was a child, at dinnertime my father would serve my brother and me wine diluted with water in tumblers. If I’m at home in the garden or on a picnic, I still sometimes like to drink wine out of a rustic tumbler—it brings back all sorts of memories. Today, you can use one good wine glass for both red and white wine. However, if you are serving good-quality wine, I’d suggest a couple of different sizes. The finer the wine, the bigger the glass, within reason of course! The rule is not to overfill the glass—you need to leave plenty of room to be able to swirl the wine around so it can breathe and so those aromas can be captured in the glass. Older red wines generally demand larger glasses than younger white wines.
BRANDY BALLOON: it doesn’t need to be big: I’ve seen some oversized balloons in my time, but the trend is for smaller glasses. The bowl of the glass should sit comfortably in the palm of your hand, which allows your own body heat to bring the aroma of the spirit to life. If you use a smaller balloon, or even a tulip-shaped “nosing” glass, don’t overfill it; you need to leave space for the aromas to develop, otherwise it will overpower your nose.
LIQUEUR GLASS: otherwise known as the trendy “Nick and Nora” glass, for delicate serves, as well as Port and sherry.
TODDY: for hot drinks where you need a handle—you can always use a nice mug though.
HURRICANE: for more exotic drinks like the Piña Colada.
JULEP TIN: for a blisteringly cold drink.
SHOT GLASS: so-called because bullets would be swapped for whiskey, or perhaps because of the noise it makes when you slam it down on the bar, and potentially the descendant of the “firing” glass. This shows how the style of a glass can influence the way you consume its contents. For that reason, amid today’s new appreciation of good-quality spirits, the trend is not to shoot drinks, even when they are served in shot glasses.
Written by Salvatore Calabrese in "Classic Cocktails", Sterling Epicure, New York, 2015. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.