There is a type of glass for every category of beverage consumed.
And within each category, there are further specializations.
With an option of stemmed or stemless glasses.
When used for wine, a stem allows you to hold the glass without warming the wine and it makes it much easier to swirl the wine.
Commonly used glasses are…
- Red Wine Glass – These need to have a larger, rounder bowl to swirl the wine easily and help aerate it. This let’s the aromas escape easier and gives the wine more aromatic complexity.
- White Wine Glass – These are smaller than red wine glasses. The small bowl preserves and concentrates floral aromas, heighten’s the wine’s intensity and helps maintain a cooler temperature.
Full-bodied whites like a Chardonnay are served in a glass with a bowl smaller than a red wine glass but larger than a light-bodied white wine glass. - Flute or champagne Glass is designed to consume Champagne and sparkling and fizzy wines.
- Cocktail Glass is a stemmed glass with an inverted cone bowl, mainly used to serve straight-up cocktails. Also used as a martini glass at times.
- Highball Glass is used to serve tall cocktails and other mixed drinks that contain a large proportion of a non-alcoholic mixer, poured over ice.
Often interchanged with the Collins glass,the highball glass is shorter and wider in shape than a Collins glass. - Lowball or Old Fashioned Glass is used to serve mixed drinks that are primarily alcohol mixed with sugar, bitters and liqueurs for flavor.
- Irish Coffee Glass is primarily used for serving Irish Coffees. It is made from clear glass, has a handle and a squat stem and base.
- Hurricane Glass is used to serve mixed drinks of the style of the Hurricane which typically amount to approximately 590 ml.