Royal Leerdam Bonheur Cocktails

Choose by the way the drink is made. For cocktails you shake and pour out without ice you need a stemmed glass: the 25 cl martini glass and the 30 cl champagne coupe fall into that group. The stem keeps your hand away from the drink, and with a drink without ice that is the only thing keeping it cold.

For drinks served with ice, look at the other two. The 63.5 cl gin and tonic glass is the balloon bowl that takes a full load of ice, gin, tonic and a slice of citrus without reaching the rim. The 30.5 cl cocktail glass sits between the two and works for shorter mixed drinks with some garnish.

Chill the stemmed glasses first. Put them in the freezer while you shake, or fill them with iced water and pour that away just before serving; it easily makes a few degrees' difference in the first minutes. Then strain the cocktail in without ice.

The martini glass is the shape for an espresso martini, where the layer of foam spreads out nicely across the wide surface. The coupe is the classic choice for a daiquiri and for everything that is shaken and strained. Fill the gin and tonic glass with ice first, then the gin, and only then the tonic along the wall.

Royal Leerdam makes this range from soda-lime glass with a pulled stem, so bowl and stem come from one piece of glass. That is the key point with stemmed glasses, because an attached stem breaks at the joint and a pulled stem does not.

The glasses can go in the dishwasher. Place them upright and make sure the bowls do not touch, because with wide coupes in particular the rims easily knock against each other.

More from this manufacturer is with the Royal Leerdam glasses, where the tableware ranges sit alongside the cocktail lines. If you would rather compare by shape than by range, look further at the martini glasses, the gin and tonic glasses, the cocktail glasses and the champagne coupes. If you do not yet know what you are going to make, start with the cocktail recipes and work back from there to the glass.