Choosing the Right Glass for a Bloody Mary

Just as there was a proper utensil assigned to eat every dish that was served at lavish Edwardian dinners like the ones dramatized in Downton Abbey, stocking a home bar with proper glassware also used to be carefully orchestrated by tradition. Every drink was assigned to a glass with a specific shape and capacity. (Back in the twentieth century folks had yet to be subjected to supersizing.)

But today Champagne and other sparkling wines are poured into tall flutes rather than wide coupe glasses, and the shape of the glass filled by a Bloody Mary varies as much as the flavorings mixed into the tomato juice.

The traditional glass was one in the “chimney glass” family, either the highball glass or the Collins glass. Both are straight-sided with flat bases and hold about twelve to fourteen ounces. Their differences: A highball glass is shorter and wider than a Collins glass; the Collins glass is usually served with a straw. The double old-fashioned glass has the same capacity, but its shape is short and squat. The double old-fashioned glasses typically have a thick base so that nonliquid ingredients can be crushed using a muddler before the liquids are poured in.

The twenty-ounce hurricane glass got its name because its curved shape is reminiscent of a hurricane lantern, not because it was popularized at Pat O’Brien’s bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans, a city that has endured more than its share of hurricanes. Like many glasses used today for Bloody Marys, the hurricane glass flares out at the top, which allows for a skyscraper of garnishes.

Today you’ll also see Bloody Marys served in traditional European beer glasses. The two most common are the pilsner glass and the weizen glass, both of which hold about sixteen ounces. The pilsner glass is tall and slender, and tapers outward from its footed base. Weizen glasses are also tall, but there’s a serpentine curve to how they widen rather than the even sides of a pilsner.

A shape unrelated to these is the twelve- to-sixteen-ounce beer snifter, a brandy snifter on steroids popular in Europe for dark, aromatic beers. While the snifter shape doesn’t allow for an elaborate garnish display, it does serve as a nice vessel to hold the drink.

Each recipe contains a drawing which is a recommendation for the best serving glass. You can always substitute whatever glass you have handy.

double old-fashioned

weizen beer

pilsner

stemmed martini

snifter

beer snifter

highball

collins

mason jar