从鸟浴缸到两盎司小杯：鸡尾酒复兴如何让杯器回归本真

Story: Wayne Curtis

Illustration: Matty Newton

October 28, 2026

October 28, 2026

As the cocktail revival got underway a quarter century ago, giants roamed the Earth. The glassware was often colossal—Martini glasses the size of bird baths, rocks glasses that could double as beer steins, Margarita glasses like shallow lap pools atop saguaro-cactus stems.

Then came a new wave of serious mixologists. Among the many changes that arrived with them was the return to glassware that was smaller, more sensible, and often historic.

The early pioneers of the cocktail renaissance began by poring over old cocktail guides, studying them like the Rosetta Stone for clues to a distant past. Among their discoveries: Early cocktail glasses were Lilliputian compared to modern ones, often holding no more than three ounces. (This made the fabled three-Martini lunch of the Mad Men era considerably less daunting.) Emulating our forebears meant reviving bitters and forgotten styles of gin—and the glassware in which drinks were served.

And they were pleased that their cocktails stayed chilled to the last sip…

In 2009, I interviewed noted bartender Jamie Boudreau, who told me he had downsized the glassware at two bars he’d overseen in Seattle, Tini Bigs and Vessel. (Both have long since closed; Boudreau is now owner of Canon.) To head off complaints, he cut prices and served each glass filled to the brim. The effect was striking. Grumbling about partially-filled 12-ounce champagne glasses subsided. Customers ordered more drinks, perceiving smaller pours even though the alcohol content was the same. And they were pleased that their cocktails stayed chilled to the last sip—as art deco–era bartender Harry Craddock famously put it, they could drink while the cocktail was “still laughing at you.”

“You’re getting the same amount of alcohol, but you’re getting more of an experience,” Boudreau told me.

As glassware grew smaller, older forms were revived. Catalogs from the early 20th century depicted dozens of varieties—fluted and footed tumblers, all manner of blown stemware—many of which had washed up unloved in thrift shops. Bartenders rescued elegant sherbet glasses and goblets, and angled and faceted vessels were pressed into service for libations both old and new.

Among the older forms that resurfaced was the coupe, with its broad, saucerlike bowl atop a narrow stem. Part of its appeal may owe something to the highly spurious legend that its shape was modeled after Marie Antoinette’s breast, but its timeless elegance likely carried it further. The coupe had been popular for Champagne in the 19th century, until bartenders recognized that the flute—with its narrow taper—held effervescence longer and made for a lovelier sight, especially backlit by candles. The coupe fell out of fashion, until the modern cocktail renaissance brought it back.

Also revived was the Nick & Nora. This bell-shaped glass, with its deep bowl and narrow center of gravity, occupies territory midway between a coupe and a Martini glass. The form was old, but the name was new—bestowed by cocktail pioneer Dale DeGroff after the fast-talking, cocktail-loving characters in The Thin Man, the hit 1934 film based on Dashiell Hammett’s novel. Thanks to DeGroff ’s embrace, the Nick & Nora became a marker of quality and sophistication in emerging craft cocktail bars.

The classic V-shaped Martini glass, meanwhile, endured like an aging lion watching over its brood. It may have shrunk from the Olympic-scaled vessels of the 1980s, but its iconic silhouette has sustained its popularity despite a well-documented proclivity to topple and slosh. Through the years it became the symbol of swank—enabling it to survive the dark ages of the Appletini and other such indignities.

For the new generation of craft bartenders, the glass itself became part of the experience. Experimental physiologist Charles Spence described this as “affective ventriloquism”—the phenomenon by which one sense influences another. Touch, in this case, shapes taste. His experiments showed that diners given heavier flatware consistently rated their meals higher than those handed flimsier forks and spoons. The right glass, it turns out, can make a drink taste better.

And the evolution continues. Health concerns and GLP-1–diminished appetites are slimming glassware further still. Pony glasses holding a couple of ounces—until recently running riot on thrift store shelves—are now reportedly in short supply, snapped up by craft cocktail bars for their tiny ’tinis.

Perhaps this is where the cocktail’s arc has always bent—toward less. Less volume, less flash, more intention. The giants that once roamed the Earth have given way to something more considered: a two-ounce pour in a glass chosen with the same care as the spirit within. In that sense, the story of cocktail glassware mirrors the story of the craft cocktail revival itself—along, slow return to the idea that pleasure, properly concentrated, needs no supersizing.

Wayne Curtis

Imbibe Contributing Editor Wayne Curtis is a designated drinker, freelance writer, contributing editor to The Atlantic and online columnist at The American Scholar. His favorite drink is the Sazerac, which makes perfect sense considering he calls New Orleans home.