Cocktail Glass Smash

Last month I railed against the impropriety of calling a cocktail glass a martini glass.  Lest there be any confusion, it’s called a cocktail glass.

The irony of this of course, is that while I enjoy the martini cocktail, I hate the cocktail glass.

What a horrendous design for a piece of barware.  Sure it’s iconic.  But it’s a mess.  It’s top heavy.  All too often the cocktail is filled to the rim.  And sometimes it is just huge.

I am not even going to go into the ridiculous permutations with zigzag stems or other uncalled-for architectural flourishes.

According to the good people at Anvil Bar & Refuge, the cocktail glass as we know it “didn’t debut until the 1922 Paris Exposition.  Slowly this glass gained popularity in bars and restaurants predominantly because of its ability to deceive the customer’s perception of volume and value.”

That must have been before bars are as crowded as they can be today.

Because trying to carry around a drink in a cocktail glass at a party is an exercise in inevitability.  That drink in your hand is going to spill.  It may not be on you.  It may not be your fault.  But some of that drink is headed to the floor.

The worst thing about it that there is no good reason for a cocktail to come in a glass like that.  Most other glassware serves a purpose.  A champagne flute is long and narrow for three good reasons.
1)    Longer trails of eye-pleasing bubbles.
2)    Smaller opening for gas to escape for longer-lasting bubbles.
3)    The size and shape of the glass allow the tip of your tongue to experience the wine first, thus capturing all of its limited sweetness.

There is only one reason for the cocktail glass, besides the dubious ones listed above.  And that is to provide a stem so your hot little hands don’t prematurely warm up your drink.

And you don’t need a V-shaped glass for that.  Anything with a stem would do.  A small wine glass or a large cordial glass could do nicely.

Me?  I prefer a bucket glass, sometimes called an old fashioned glass.

One problem is that if you go shopping for these in stores most of them are far too large for cocktails.  Your drink would look as if it were a puddle in the bottom of the glass.  Seven ounces is really the perfect size.  Good luck.

The other problem is that if you request one of these in a bar, they look at you like you are crazy.  Some kind of buffoon who is clearly not sophisticated enough to be drinking in their establishment.

Granted, it’s nontraditional.  It is also unlikely anyone had asked for anything like it before.  But it makes sense.

With a seven-ounce bucket glass, your glass is about half filled once a full size cocktail is poured into it.  If you hold the glass near the top, you will not appreciably warm your drink before it is completed.  Given that there is plenty of room in the glass, you are unlikely to spill it, or have it spilled.  And finally, it is much easier to gauge how much booze is left in your glass.

Now, it is my official duty to call out the cocktail glass as being needlessly fussy.