Berry Bros & Rudd/Nude No3 Glass

Glassware review

I’ll be honest. I don’t have much time for promotional gimmicks, but this one was exceptional on about half a dozen levels.

First. I heard about it from il Pelagi . I’ve only ever encountered the guy online but he seems to be the Right Sort of Chap. He drinks martinis, knows far too much about them, takes great pictures of them... and his handle has tantalising resonances of deep ocean fish. That, as they say, is a guy you’re gonna want to listen to. When he mentioned the No3, a promotional item from Berry Brothers & Rudd, my interest was perked

Second. I first encountered Berry Brothers & Rudd No3 Gin at Dukes. Mr Harrison Sr. had taken me there to have a martini mixed by Alessandro. As he mixed, he talked about the custom-made gin he favoured and gestured over his shoulder in the direction of No 3 St. James’ St. where, about 200m away, Berry Bros & Rudd (BB&R) had run their wine merchant since 1698.

There was something about the way he did that. “They’re my neighbours. Of course I use their gin”. I left the place, predictably on Cloud 9 but indelibly marked with No 3*.

Third. When BB&R decided to issue a promotional glass, they didn’t bugger about. They went to Nude. You may not have heard of them but, if you’ve had a drink in even a half-hip bar or restaurant in London over the last five years or so, you’ve drunk from Nude glassware and probably wondered ‘Oooh. I wonder if I should buy some of these?’

Fourth. The engineering. They approached a proper engineer. Dr. Junfeng Yang — a lecturer at the University of Leeds and specialist in thermodynamics. Call me a nerd, call me OCD, but I want a Doctor of Thermodynamics involved in my drink at every possible opportunity.

And look what they did! I’m not a fan of the coupe as a delivery mechanism ... in fact I’m frankly prepared to punch out the next person who brings up Marie Antoinette’s tits in a conversation about glassware. I’m sorry... it’s sexist, unwholesome and in the end, utter bollocks.

But look at the length of the stem. Thermodynamics aside, that extra height imbues an incredible elegance. The balance between height and width is textbook. The stem is *precisely* as thin as you can get away with in crystal glass that can actually be handled by humans. On a simple visual level, you’ve got to say that’s a little blinder.

Now. Let’s get into the gears and spanners bit. Look at the picture and notice that slightly darker blue area at the bottom of the bowl.

Damn right.

That’s a plug of solid borosilicate glass. Look at it another way - the exterior curve is subtly different to the inside, ‘flat bottom’ profile, to the extent that there are several grammes of solid glass. Solid glass that will, after being stored in a freezer, hold cold for ages.

I mean... it feels sacriligious to bring it up, but this is the same principle as the beer glasses they used to keep in a freezer at TGI Fridays. If your beerglass is effectively a kilogramme of freezer-storedPyrex, it’s going to chill the absolute buggery out of your cheap-ass Bud Light and keep it there while you try to seduce your colleague in HR, fail, and retire weeping to your damp flat. Alone and talking to a pot plant.

Sorry... went off-piste there.

So this glass *will* hold cold like a heavy, cheap, moulded glass, while looking like a high end, classy blown one.

So... Fifth. I think the promotion ended ages ago. It’s sort of forgotten. But if you go here... you can get 2 glasses for £153 ... which sounds high, until you realise that you get a bottle of gin with it (£40 in Waitrose) which brings things back into reasonable perspective. It’s not like you’re not going to drink it anyway (see footnote)

So... Sixth. I can see why they made the whole thing a little bit blue. God, I worked in Brand Consultancy for years... I see what you’re doing! But I’m prepared to live with it. Because a) the engineering is SO on the button and begrudgingly, b) I bloody love their gin.

“In recent tests” as they say, the glass performed brilliantly. I made martinis Alessandro style with frozen No3 , but the glass held cold for at least two refills.

Light, it is not. But the balance is near perfect.

Truly. The No3 glass is the Wonder of the Age.

If Nude ever get round to manufacturing a clear version, for general distribution, we’ll all be buying them by the half dozen

(I have no commercial relationship with BBR, BTW. I had to buy my own pair. and nobody, unfortunately, subsidises my drinking)

*Every bottle of No3 has a metal key set into the front of the triangular light blue bottle. I have prised the key out of every bottle I’ve drunk and put them on a key ring.

I’ve changed the keyring three times. Each bigger, obviously.

Initially this amused me. Recently I’ve begun to feel like Jacob bloody Marley