I Need Glasses

I think I inherently distrust the entire idea of perfection. Much wank is spoken or performed in the Cult of Perfectibility - the fallacious belief that ‘perfect’ is to be desired or can ever be achieved. Perhaps what’s spoiled the idea of perfect is lifestyle journalism, Surely the most slaveringly decerebrate headline is that which promises “The Perfect…’ anything.

This prejudice means I will never be able to offer my own hot take on The Perfect Martini Glass, because I can’t believe such a thing could ever exist and because, after years of persistent drinking, I have to maintain a suite of near-perfect ones in order to meet any need

The most complicated reason I can’t choose is that every glass is loaded with significance. I can’t even begin to parse out how much of my response to the glass is physiological, or aesthetic. How much cultural and how much purely emotional.

So here are my go-to five…

Richard Brendon’s glassware is light, thin and shockingly tough if handled with a modicum of care. I don’t ‘chuck’ mine in the dishwasher - I place them carefully. But you’ve got to have a fair amount of confidence to do that with a £75 glass.

In fact, I’ve never lost a glass in the dishwasher. Plenty have gone during an expansive gesture while storytelling at table… but the dishwasher is absolutely the best place for top notch modern glassware. Traditional silica glass was susceptible to ‘thermal shock’. It would expand when hot and contract when cold and sometimes… if for example you poured a cold drink into a warm glass, the expansion/contraction was more than the glass could take and it shattered from the internal stresses. I think we all know how that feels. It’s probably why we drink in the first place.

Modern borosilicate glass is resistant to thermal shock. It’s flexible and it distributes heat easily through itself. Now I don’t think for a moment either you or I would pour a frozen martini into a warm glass - we’re not barbarians - but the beauty of gossamer-thin borosilicate is that, when you pour frozen alcohol in, the glass immediately freezes. You can keep the glasses in the freezer if you wish… but it’s not actually necessary.

Brendon makes very fine borosilicate glasses but he’s also a tremendous designer. His glasses are austere, elegant and restrained. His martini glass is pretty much the perfect, expression of what a martini glass is supposed to be… but an impossibly delicate silverpoint sketch of it. If it was any more pared back it wouldn’t actually exist.

I first encountered Brendon’s work when he collaborated on a fait-tout wine glass for Jancis Robinson. I took out a mortgage to buy half a dozen and they’ve survived 4 years of hard punishing work. But as well as his ‘ur-martini glass’ he’s collaborated with Jeremy King to make custom martini glasses for each of his restaurants. Subtly different versions for the Park, Arlington and now Simpson’s… between you and me, I’m aiming to nick the full set.

I’ve written at length elsewhere about Libbey’s classic cocktail glasses which, if they weren’t the absolute first of the conical icons (probably Lobmeyr) were certainly the ones that set the trend for a generation of American drinkers. Apart from their bomb-proofness and excellent cold-holding capabilities they are also just such solid pieces of American engineering. The glass, a tough ‘Pyrex’ style originally used for lightbulbs and searchlight lenses, is pressed into a mould rather than delicately blown and spun. Huge machines are involved. It has structural resonances with the classic Coca-Cola bottle or the headlamps on a truck. As with any conical, stemmed glass, form follows function… but the functionality is just so butch. In spite of its undeniable elegance, it feels like a glass for a Drinker rather than a Dilettante.

1 Club Row has played a blinding cocktail game from the start. I particularly love that the list is split in two. All the smokey, dark, contemplative ones are presented as ‘after dinner’ which feel to me the perfect place for a Vieux Carré or a Sazerac, the pre-prandials are the classic pipe-openers, martinis, Manhattans, a Negroni and a straight-edge Daiquiri. But they were also the first restaurant to serve me a small martini in a gorgeous little short glass. It’s thick enough to hold the cold which, after all it doesn’t have to do for very long. It’s a nice touch when the staff at The Dover, Donovan or Vibrato change your glass half way through, but, by that point, your mini-martini is finished. Still, it’s a great thing to keep about, if only for that transactional point in the evening when you find yourself thinking ‘I really shouldn’t have another’ but you really can’t argue with a half.

John Jenkins have been making machine and handmade glassware for bars and hotels since 1901 and their clients are basically the list of places you might ever aspire to drink a martini. For the sake of brevity I’ll mention just two. If you’re lucky enough to have a Martini made for you by Alessandro Palazzi at Duke’s it’ll be built in a John Jenkins ‘Connoisseur’. If, though, you sneak into the back bar at Osteria Vibrato and have Jack make you a Gibson, it’ll come in a John Jenkins ‘Havana’.

It’s still a cone, but taller and thinner, and to balance, the stem is shorter. Because they’re so focussed on commercial use, both glasses are a little more robustly built than, for example, the Richard Brendons. They need to go into a glass washer at the end of service so they’ve got a touch of Mil-spec about them… but the extra heft also means they have more thermal mass. They freeze down well and ‘hold-the-cold’. This makes them perfect for the ‘half-way-swap’. The slicker-than-the-path-to-hell legerdemain by which your glass is changed as soon as the frost on the outside dissipates.

You need two frozen John Jenkins for each martini… which is why I keep half a dozen in my freezer.

Harry’s in Venice is such a glorious room, in such a spectacular location and so laden with lore that one might forgive them anything. They’re Italian so you sort of expect a ‘direct’ martini, but their practice of pouring in advance and keeping them on trays in a freezer under the bar is a ballsy move. They’re serving what might be one of the most significant martinis in the world whilst denying both themselves and their customers any contextualising ritual. No ice, no careful measuring, no shakers or stirrers… effectively zero interaction with the barman. It’s astonishing. It really shouldn’t work but it does.

I still remember the first time I ordered one. The barman, as slick as a matinee idol in his white mess jacket didn’t even break eye contact. He just slid open what appeared to be the glass top of an ice-cream freezer and reached down as if rootling for a Calippo, Then up it came, a tiny frosted glass looking much like the kind you’d keep your toothbrush in at a Holiday Inn.

He slid it toward me across the polished wood, teeth sparkling, and rotated it. Jesus… it’s got a logo.

A sort of chubby 1930s Michelin-esque barman character, pouring into three glasses. It’s a good logo, for sure. Strong, dynamic diagonal… a touch of Fascist futurism… undercut by cartoon charm. Very Venetian. But I don’t even want to see ‘Guinness’ on my pint. I want to drink it not advertise it.

But it’s a beautiful drink and I find myself loving it. Truth is that there’s a lot more going on… so much so that I’m filled with forgiveness - because I’m now convinced it’s all about the arse.

Think about it for a second. There are maybe 40 covers in Harry’s. Less than half a dozen stools at the bar. Hemingway came here dozens of times. He must have sat right here at least once. And Sean Connery… and Humphrey Bogart. Dickie Greenleaf sat here and he didn’t even exist. C’mon…. Think about it…my worthless posterior and Grace Kelly’s Actual Arse. There’s an intimacy with greatness there that no other venue could dream of emulating.

So yes. There needs to be a Harry’s Bar logoed tooth-mug in the freezer too. It might have a naff ‘souvenir’ quality too it but, dammit, they wouldn’t let me take the stool home and I want to remember being there.

Thing is... I can’t be without them. Any evening, my livener can be subtly enhanced by the design or the emotional load of one or other of them.

I need them all.