Colorful, Eye-Catching Cocktail Glasses Are Everywhere. Here Are Our 6 Favorites
This gorgeous stemware from designers around the globe will make any tablescape pop.
The average home bar cart looks a little different these days. Low-ABV aperitifs and nonalcoholic spritzes sit alongside the usual boozy suspects, and instead of clear crystal, you may find a rainbow of mismatched glassware. Camp and colorful highballs and coupes speak to the genre of fast and loose gatherings we’ve come to love. You know, the kind where you’ll find an array of cheeses, tinned fish, and pickled things thrown together atop a coffee table or kitchen island strewn with tarot cards, half-burned candles, and yesterday’s mail. We celebrate the moment and the people around us with no fuss over formal place settings.
Having unbridled fun calls for glassware as sturdy as it is joyful. Enter: borosilicate, a concoction of silica and boron trioxide invented in 1887 by German scientist Otto Schott. Looking to make clearer, more durable laboratory glass, Schott unwittingly created a heat-resistant material that would come to be used in pharmaceuticals, railroads, a little thing called Pyrex, and—beginning in the early 1900s—this kaleidoscopic stemware style. Here are a few of our favorite brands for brightening up any special occasion.
This clear and pink number made in Sydney, Australia, by Elise Pioch Balzac is inspired by the shrimp cocktail she ate at dinner parties as a child in 1980s France. Balzac loves borosilicate because it can hold boiling water, a cold drink, and anything in between. Her designs exemplify playful nostalgia with a nod to the retro kitsch.
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Maison Balzac Shrimp Cocktail Coupe
Maison Balzac Black Bow Coupes
Maison Balzac Bordeaux Wine Glasses
The women-led team behind this Aussie fragrance-turned-homewares brand turns everyday objects into unexpected sculptural experiences. As with all borosilicate, the punchy colors never fade because the natural pigments are added before the molten glass is blown.
For nearly a century, glassmaker Ichendorf Milano has teamed up with innovative artists such as Alessandra Baldereschi, who is behind designs including the Desert Plants Cactus Champagne Coupe. These fairy-tale-esque glasses are sturdier than they look—and dishwasher-safe! No champagne? No problem—any drink served straight up takes well to the shape.
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Ichendorf Milano Cactus Champagne Glasses
Ichendorf Milano Bloom Glassware
Ichendorf Milano Luna Goblet
Brooklyn mixologist Arley Marks partnered with award-winning designer Jonathan Mosca to create novel pieces such as the “refreshingly multifunctional” reversible hi-ball: Sip a spritz in the voluminous half, then flip to enjoy a two-ounce pour of any digestif you fancy.
This multidisciplinary artist taps into his British Nigerian heritage to create vibrant pieces such as this Oorun Didun Drinking Glass. Designed in partnership with MoMA, the vessel—aptly named for a Nigerian expression that means “sweet sun”—brightens any table.
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Yinka Ilori Oorun Didun Glass Cups
This French American designer loves “creating the ‘unexpected’ within the familiar.” Her diminutive Coco Cups are durable in both material and shape and work equally well as shot glasses or cocktail pick holders at casual parties or as salt dishes or egg cups on the dinner table.
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