Boozehound - Jason Wilson [102]
Beyond creating an overpriced, warm drink, the large-glass phenomenon is not particularly healthy. If you don’t take the time to measure—and few people do—it’s nearly impossible to correctly gauge how much liquor you’re pouring. People end up boozing much more than they realize.
Consider a 2003 Duke University Medical Center study in which college students were asked to estimate and pour standard measurements of different spirits into glasses of several sizes. The students, on average, overpoured shots by 26 percent, mixed drinks by 80 percent, and beer by 25 percent, the study showed. The larger the glass, the more they overpoured. Yes, I realize that for many college students, drink potency outweighs craftsmanship. But the best cocktails are carefully balanced, and the effect of an oversize glass on that balance has been worrying observers for decades.
“A too-large glass gives the drink more time to lose its chill and initial zest, and a half-filled glass looks unexciting, so an average-size cocktail glass of 4½ ounces is the most satisfactory,” wrote Collette Richardson in the 1973 edition of House and Garden’s Drink Guide.
Nearly four decades later, just try finding a 4½-ounce cocktail glass. In fact, most glassware called for in cocktail books has become exceedingly difficult to find. Retailers also are stocked with ridiculously huge double old-fashioned glasses, clocking in at 10 to 15 ounces. Finding the normal 6- to 8-ounce old-fashioned glass that most drink recipes call for is difficult but not impossible. I ended up buying a heavy-bottomed 6-ounce “juice” glass at Crate and Barrel that works fine.
In addition to the cocktail and old-fashioned glasses, a tall, slender 10-ounce highball glass and a 2-ounce cordial/shot glass are the essentials for a home bar. The best bet for finding them is at a bar- and restaurant-supply store or a yard sale. The search will be worth it.