Cocktail glasses

For the vast majority of recipes you need three shapes. A stemmed glass for cocktails served without ice, because otherwise your hand warms the drink within a minute: martini glasses, coupes, coupettes and nick & noras fall into that group. A low, heavy glass for everything that goes on ice, for which the old fashioned glass is the standard. And a tall glass for everything you top up with tonic, a soft drink or sparkling water, for which you look at the long drink glasses. If you want to expand after that, you end up at the hurricane for tropical drinks and the tiki mug for rum.

On capacity the rule is: rather a little too small than too large. A cocktail without ice is usually eight to twelve centilitres, so in a 25 cl bowl it sits half empty and that looks stingy. For drinks on ice count on 25 to 35 cl, for long drinks 30 to 40 cl. Material is the last choice. Tempered glass is thicker at the rim and forgiving, lead-free crystal is thinner and clearer. And by a pool, on a boat or at a festival, plastic is the sensible option: from a metre away polycarbonate looks like glass, but it does not break.

Chill the glass before you pour. Five minutes in the freezer, or a minute with ice and water in it, makes a noticeable difference to anything you serve without ice. Throw the ice water away, shake the glass dry and only then pour. A frosted glass is not only better to look at, it also keeps the cocktail at temperature considerably longer. Then fill your shaker generously with ice, because too little ice melts quickly and dilutes your drink more than hard shaking ever will.

After that the glass is still only half the story. A negroni is stirred in a mixing glass and strained over a fresh ice cube in the low glass. An espresso martini, by contrast, has to be shaken hard, because without that force you never get the layer of foam that belongs on top. A mojito is built directly in the tall glass, with the mint at the bottom and crushed ice on top. The difference between stirring and shaking is no detail: stirred, a cocktail stays clear and silky; shaken, it becomes airy and slightly watery, and that last part is exactly what a sour needs.

Cocktail glasses take more punishment than wine glasses. Citric acid, sticky syrups, ice cubes knocking against the wall and a dishwasher that runs twenty times on a busy evening. So choose glassware with a tempered rim if it stands behind a bar, because that is where breakage begins. Wash on a short glass programme or by hand, rinse well and polish with a lint-free cloth. Limescale marks stand out especially on crystal glass and disappear with a dash of vinegar in the rinse water.

Store glasses with the bowl upright, so the rim rests on nothing, and give coupes some space between them. Most damage happens not while mixing but in the cupboard and in the dishwasher rack, where stems come to lean against each other. That is also why a bar with five glasses of one shape works out cheaper than a bar with five different ones: you can stack, sort and reorder without thinking.

If you already know which shape you want, you can click straight through. The coupette glasses have their own page, and the same goes for the hurricanes, the tiki mugs, the margarita glasses and the nick & noras, all of which you will find in the menu alongside. If you are after the recipe rather than the glass, every classic on our recipe pages gives the ratio and the glass it belongs in. And if you already have the glassware but are missing the tools, look at the cocktail shakers, where bar spoons, jiggers and strainers sit too. Still unsure about size or material? The frequently asked questions below will take you further.