Is bigger better? Not when it comes to cocktail glasses. Here are 3 great reasons to go small.
1. Small Glasses Keep Things Chill
If you've ever struggled with those last few room-temperature sips of a Martini, you'll know what I'm talking about. What began as a crisply bracing, cocktail-hour refresher now seems about as appealing as a swig of tepid bathwater.
The solution? Put those oversized cocktail glasses away. Go smaller with a 4-, or even 3-ounce glass.
Don't worry, I'm not suggesting that you painstakingly re-calculate all your favorite recipes, systematically re-jiggering them so that your just over 4-ounce Manhattan will now fit into a diminutive 3-ounce vessel. What I'm recommending here is the patented "chilled-second-helping-ready-and-waiting-for-you" method of serving cocktails straight up.
After you've filled your glass, strain and decant any "leftovers" into a separate container (I'll often use a small juice glass) and pop it in the fridge. Or, if you want to get a little fancier, you can do what many craft cocktail bars do: pour the excess into a small carafe, then place the carafe in a bowl filled with ice beside you. Either way, when the time comes to top up your drink, you'll have fresh, cold "second helpings" ready to go.
Pictured above: a 3.5-ounce vintage glass; a 4-ounce vintage glass; a 4-ounce contemporary glass; a 5-ounce contemporary glass; a 10-ounce contemporary glass.
2. Small Glasses Balance Better
Drinking mammoth portions from birdbath-sized cocktail glasses can cause you to lose your balance in more ways than one. Oversized "Martini" glasses (like the 10-ouncer pictured to the far right above), with their long stems and wide, conical bowls, are top-heavy and prone to tipping and sloshing over when full. Most small glasses have a lower center of gravity, ensuring that they're a lot less likely to get "tipsy" - and that they're a whole lot more comfortable to hold.
Pictured above: a Martini in a 4-ounce glass and a Manhattan in a 3.5-ounce glass.
3. Small Glasses Have Historical Cred
Small glasses aren't just practical for classic recipes, they're also stylistically appropriate. Over the years, cocktail glasses have grown supersized, ballooning from the modest 3- to 4-ouncers that were standard in 1930s to the imposing 8- to 10-ouncers so ubiquitous today. But if you're fixing yourself an old-timey classic such as a Martini or a Manhattan, a Jack Rose or a Sazerac, why not choose a glass befitting William Powell in The Thin Man (1934), or Bette Davis in All About Eve (1950)? Go small.
Small Cocktail Glasses Available Online:
- Vintage glasses from EBay. There's nothing like the thrill of browsing through a thrift store or yard sale and spying a small, hand-etched gem priced at just a few dollars. But for those other times, there's eBay. My own recent search for some vintage Fostoria glasses turned up a wealth of gorgeous options, with "Buy It Now" prices ranging from $3.75 to $56.99 per stem.
- Martini Embassy, 5 ounces, $4.95 at Fish's Eddy (a sturdy everyday glass that's dishwasher safe)
- Mini Martini, 2 ounces, $1.95 at Crate & Barrel (this one might even be a little too small for ordinary use, but would be great for sampling a variety of cocktails at a tasting party)
- Reidel Vinum Martini Glass, 4.6 ounces, $40 for a set of 2 at Williams-Sonoma (an elegant design from one of the most revered makers of crystal stemware)
What kind of cocktail glasses do you use at home?
Nora Maynard is a longtime home mixologist and an occasional instructor at NYC’s Astor Center. She is a contributor to The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food and Drink Industries and is the recipient of the American Egg Board Fellowship in culinary writing at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow. She previously covered food and drink in film at The Kitchn in her weekly column, The Celluloid Pantry.
Related: Living with Mismatched and (Mostly) Vintage Glassware
(Images: Nora Maynard)
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I cruise the second hand stores and auctions for glassware. Often you can find older (smaller) glasses boxed up in lots from estate sales. Ive gotten some for as low as 50c per stem!
I'm a sipper, not a chugger, so I love small glasses, especially for an all-spirits drink like a martini or a Manhattan. With a big glass, I can't drink it fast enough to keep it cool.
Years ago, one of my favorite restaurants used to bring me a cocktail glass with my drink in it, and a tiny carafe holding the dividend, resting in a tiny ice bucket to stay cool and fresh for my refill. I loved that: such a pleasant way to present a generous drink.
I like this idea. I've been looking to downsize my white wine glasses to avoid the warm dregs thing and so it's easier to keep with my limits. Plus that way if I do decide to have a cheeky second glass it's not such a compound effect. Can't seem to find anywhere online selling 125ml glasses yet though :s
I COMPLETELY agree. I don't actually mind large wine glasses (I fill them 1/4 full--plus it allows you to better smell the wine), but I hate really large cocktail glasses. They're awkward to hold and I don't want that much hard liquor at one time anyway. If I could change my wedding registry, I'd forgo a lot of our barware (esp. martini glasses) and search for some sweet, small vintage pieces at the secondhand store.
All my wine glasses are small vintage varieties. I definitely like them better than the huge ones. Beverage stays colder and no one faults you for refilling several times!
So, I feel a little foolish asking this question. I know that a large surface will help a hot liquid cool off faster (why my relatives drink chai from a bowl); does a large exposed surface make a cold drink warm up appreciably more quickly? I ask because I like this concept but wouldn't like to get new stemware.
When she moved into a smaller house, my grandma gave me a set of four small cocktail glasses that look very much like the ones in your pictures. They're great for guests who don't want a full-sized martini; I call them "minitinis." I also love knowing that my grandparents used them.
According to at least one spirits expert (Harold Grossman) cocktails are meant to be drunk and not sipped. In other words, small servings facilitate consumption. Theidea is that the volatile mixtures are best appreciated quickly--with the buzz following--rather than going "stale" while being sipped. Careful laboratory experience has proven this to be a worthwhile approach.
We recently bought some art deco style vintage "glasses" that are actually chrome (I think). They're small and seem to keep our martinis colder. We feel very cool when drinking out of them. :)
If I'm not mistaken the smaller size is more authentic anyway. Looking at an old cocktail manual was a real eye opener for me- it seems they made drinks a lot smaller back in the day. I imagine the difference is the American tendency to supersize everything- though I imagine the whole bucket-o-booze thing makes for cheap dates...
We're young enough that oversize cocktail glasses aren't a problem for us, but a set of smaller glasses for dinner parties sounds fantastic.
@andypucko - Yeah, a Mad-Men-era three-martini lunch was not done with 10 oz. martini glasses! Like restaurant portion sizes, things have definitely been scaled up for the modern era.
As someone who drinks cocktails for flavor and not for the alcohol content, I love my vintage 3 oz. and Mikasa 4 oz. cocktail glasses. Another trick? Don't fill them up all the way! Harder to spill that way, too.
I like it for calorie reasons as well. A 3 or 4 oz. glass holds a lot less crunches and cardio than a 10 oz glass!
We have the plain dizzy glasses from Crate and Barrel, as Ifound most modern large glasses to be too tippy, precisely as you pointed out in the article. I measure my drinks carefully, usually topping out at 4-5 oz. This seems to fit the dizzy glasses well, without looking too full.
I totally agree with you, Nora. Of all the cocktails I mix that call for a martini glass, none of them end up being more than 4 oz. of liquid. I've been bewildered by all the huge martini glasses out there. At Crate & Barrel last weekend, I was stuck between the tiny 2oz. glasses and the too-large 7oz. glasses, so I went home empty handed.
If you're making a cocktail that doesn't fit in a 4-5oz. glass, it probably isn't supposed to be in a martini glass anyway.