The Best Martini and Coupe Glasses

Technically speaking, you can drink a cocktail out of almost any vessel. A mug, a juice glass, a Mason jar—even a measuring cup will work just fine if your only goal is to convey your drink of choice to your lips. (In Some Like it Hot, Marilyn Monroe’s character famously mixes her Manhattans in a hot-water bottle and serves them in paper cups from the water fountain.) But dedicated glassware can make a big difference to your drinking experience. A good martini or coupe glass can be a real pleasure to sip from and elevates the presentation of your cocktail, looking a lot more elegant and celebratory than a Mason jar ever would.

For this review, we limited our focus to glasses with capacities from 5 to 8 ounces—the most common sizes and the ones that accommodate most standard cocktail recipes.

Either type can be used for cocktails that are served “up,” or without ice. But tradition dictates that martinis should be served in martini glasses, which have a V-shaped bowl, and most other strained (i.e. ice-less) cocktails should be served in a coupe glass, which has a more rounded, half-spherical bowl. Curious to see if tradition had any basis in science—and if the shape had any impact on the perceived flavor or aroma—we drank martinis, daiquiris, and margaritas from each type of glass. The results were inconclusive. While a few testers felt that the curves of the coupe glass helped concentrate the aromas of some drinks, ultimately, there was no clear consensus on these benefits. (Our finding tracks with the mixed results seen in existing studies on how wine-glass shape affects sensory perception.)

As a result, we think it’s perfectly fine to serve a martini in a coupe glass or a daiquiri in a martini glass if you like. Of course, you could always get both types of glass, though you don’t need both. (Bars often choose one type or the other based on current trends and individual preferences.) If you’re only going to buy one type, the choice of which glass to get ends up being largely aesthetic: Do you prefer the sharp angles of the martini glass or the rounder curves of the coupe?

There’s one smaller consideration that you might want to take into account as well. We found it harder to transport drinks without spilling in the martini glasses than in the coupe glasses; there was nothing to keep the liquid from sloshing over the sides of the martini glasses as we walked with them. By contrast, the rims of the coupe glasses curved inward ever so slightly, helping to contain the drinks, so we could more confidently walk 25 feet holding them without spilling. If you are concerned about spilling, you might want to stick with a coupe glass.

All good stemware is made from glass, and there are two main types on the market. Most stemware is made from soda lime glass, a relatively inexpensive medium that is commonly used for other glass housewares (drinking glasses, bowls, measuring cups, etc.) But you can also buy more expensive stemware made from a special type of glass called crystal.

While we liked martini and coupe glasses made from soda-lime glass just fine, we vastly preferred the crystal models. Why? As we learned from James Shackelford, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of California, Davis, crystal is a glass that is made with the addition of certain minerals. The primary purpose of these mineral additions is to increase the index of refraction and thus the sparkle of the glass. But as Shackelford and Alexis Clare, Professor of Glass Science at Alfred University, explained, the presence of minerals also makes it easier to blow crystal glass thinner and lighter than conventional soda-lime glass.

We didn’t find the crystal glasses to sparkle much more than the soda-lime glasses. But the thinner and lighter the glass, the more we liked it. The lightest crystal models weighed just 2 to 4 ounces and felt unbelievably delicate and elegant in our hands. They also measured just under a millimeter thick at the rim and seemed to almost disappear as we drank from them, allowing us to focus more intently on the cocktails themselves. By contrast, the soda-lime glasses—most measuring around 2 millimeters thick and weighing between 4.8 and 6.25 ounces—felt a little more rustic, though still perfectly serviceable.

Although these crystal martini glasses looked delicate, they were just as durable as the soda-lime glasses, surviving 10 washes—including one after we left the remnants of a drink in each overnight and then scrubbed them (carefully!) with our favorite sponge—without scratching or breaking. As Clare explained, the minerals in crystal actually make it softer than soda-lime glass and thus more resistant to brittle fracture. (All the glasses we tested can be put in the dishwasher, though because many are delicate, we decided it was better to hand-wash them.)

Of course, there is one significant drawback to crystal stemware: its price. Crystal is significantly more expensive than soda-lime, costing up to three times as much per glass. Get whatever’s most reasonable for your budget. Although we think it’s worth splurging on the crystal sets if you have the money, your drink will still taste great and look properly festive in a soda-lime martini or coupe glass. We’ve provided winners and best buys for this reason.

• Light Weight: We preferred models that weighed as little as possible, as they felt especially refined and elegant in our hands.

• Thin Construction: The thinner the glass was at the rim, the less aware we were of it as we sipped our cocktails, allowing us to focus more carefully on our drink. Gossamer-thin crystal was best, as it provided the purest, most unobstructed drinking experience.

• Moderately Tall Stems: We generally preferred moderately long stems measuring between 2.5 and 3.5 inches. Stems in this size range made the glasses look and feel well-balanced and let hands of all sizes hold the glasses comfortably. Shorter stems were harder for large-handed users to grasp comfortably or without cupping the bowl—a move that can warm up your drink faster than you might like. Longer stems sometimes made the bowls look a little ungainly or feel a bit top-heavy.