To me, a cocktail glass is a thing of beauty. The simpler the design, the better. For my personal use, I chose Luigi Bormioli’s Michelangelo series. It is a medium sized glass. The saucer holds 7.5 ounces (thanks to surface tension) but, I would never pour more than 5.5 ounces. Drinks just look nicer when they have a “collar” (the space between the liquid and the top of the glass). The Michelangelo series is very straight forward with simple lines that say elegance to me.
The cocktail glass has also become known as the martini glass. Since the invention of the martini, the cocktail glass has been its vessle. There is nothing better than the sight of a crisp, clear, cold martini presented in a cocktail glass.
Unfortunately, with this new name, comes much confusion. It seems anything that is poured into a cocktail glass magically becomes a “martini”. To me, the definition of a martini is the following: gin, dry vermouth and bitters. Anything else is a cocktail.