We Tested 9 Coupe Glasses—Here Are Our Top Picks for Perfect Cocktails

Drinks poured over ice, like an Old Fashioned, work best in short, squat rocks glasses. This lets you grasp it with your hand, warming it up and helping with dilution. However, "up drinks" or those served sans ice (like martinis) are a different story. These drinks, which are strained, require a stemmed glass. This keeps your hand well away from the cup so your body temperature doesn’t warm up the drink and muddy the flavors. There are two basic styles of stemmed glasses: the martini glass and the coupe glass. There are good reasons to grab the latter.

A coupe glass is essentially a small, shallow bowl on a stem. It originated, by most accounts, in 17th-century England, where it was used for Champagne. When the classic cocktail era came about, the coupe glass was adopted for stronger drinks to great effect.

A set of coupe glasses is an essential (and nice-looking) home bar addition. To find the best ones, we tested nine of them by making and serving martinis and daiquiris. The winners married elegance with durability, and weren't overly large—you’re making a cocktail, not a bowl of soup.

The Tests

• Martini Test: We stirred a martini over ice and strained it into each glass to observe its appearance. We also tasted it to observe aroma and flavor, and to note how the glass felt to hold and sip from.
• Temperature Test: We took the martini’s temperature when poured and 15 minutes later to observe how well it retained its chill in the glass.
• Daiquiri Test: We shook a daiquiri over ice and strained it into each glass to observe its appearance. We added a lime wheel to the rim of each glass as a garnish, observing how well it stayed put. We then tasted the daiquiri to observe the aroma and flavor and to note how pleasant the glass was to sip from and hold.
• Cleaning Test: After each test, we hand-washed each glass to observe how easy it was to clean. We also machine-washed appropriate glasses to observe durability.
  

What We Learned

Bigger Wasn't Always Better

If you search for vintage coupe glasses online, you’ll find many that are on the smaller side. Though the cocktails of the 1990s were super-sized, pre-prohibition cocktails were not. Big on flavor and potency but small in measure, they were poured into petite glasses appropriate to their size. There’s a romantic, old-timey vibe to drinking out of a smaller coupe. Chilled beforehand, a smaller coupe glass helps keep the drink colder longer, too, though a smaller drink will probably be finished before it warms up. 

Both the martini and the daiquiri that we made to test the coupe glasses were based on 3-ounce builds. After dilution, they didn’t get over four ounces in size. Poured into a glass twice that size or more, the drinks generally looked too short. With many of the bigger coupe glasses, the lime wheel didn’t even break the surface of the daiquiri when it was propped on the rim, which wasn’t a great look. We found the Cocktail Kingdom’s Leopold Coupe Glass, at six ounces, was truly the ideal size.

Bowl Shape Was More Important than the Stem

A stem is a stem is a stem. Clutching nine different stems on nine different glasses, we concluded that most stems are just fine, though we did find three possible problems with the stem:

1) It’s so nubby that your hand ends up wedged against the bowl of the coupe glass. That issue did not come up, except in a roundabout way with the Godinger Champagne Coupe (see below), which was unbalanced in all sorts of aspects.

2) The stem is so thick and ungainly in proportion to the base and the bowl, that the glass is out of whack (again, we cite the Godinger).

3) The stem is so thin that you fear it will break. The Riedel and the Nude Glass threatened such a scenario.

But a bigger concern was the shape of the bowl. After all, it holds the cocktail. A deeper bowl means less chance of spillage, and the bowls that worked best had high sides that concentrated the liquid’s aroma and helped it retain its chill. Bowls that were shallow and wide threatened spills, and they dissipated the cold, warming the martini and daiquiri too quickly. After 15 minutes, the drinks had increased in temperature by nearly 30 degrees; they begged for an ice cube. 

A bowl that flared slightly inward concentrated the aroma of the drink best, allowing it to rise upward, which enhanced the flavor of the cocktail. But the biggest concern with the bowl was its size. If it was too big—and many of them were—it dwarfed the cocktail, making it look like half a drink rather than a whole one. That’s a major disappointment when you’re anticipating a nice, substantial-looking sip.

A Good Coupe Glass Should be Durable

Some of the coupe glasses we tested were so thin that we were afraid they’d crack when washing. While none did, we can’t say if this would be a constant over time. We’d feel insecure using glasses as thin as the Reidel if we were throwing a house party. But some coupe glasses, the Bacador chief among them, bridged the divide between durability and chic with a slightly thinner material and a longer, more slender stem, while still feeling substantial and sturdy.

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Coupe Glass

A great coupe glass should be elegant but sturdy. We preferred coupes with deeper bowls and high sides, which kept cocktails safe and cold. We'd advise avoiding coupes that could double as fish bowls, or your drink will look meager.

Our Favorite Coupe Glasses

The Best Coupe Glass

Cocktail Kingdom Leopold Coupe

$50 at Amazon View on Cocktail Kingdom

What we liked: A terrific little workhorse of a coupe glass, the Leopold is just the right size for a 4-ounce cocktail. Its compact bowl holds in the chill, keeping the drink nice and cold for a long time. The steep walls of the bowl keep your hand well in the clear of warming the drink, even though the stem is short. And there’s less risk of breakage with its thick, squat, yet not inelegant design.

What we didn’t like: If you’re having one of those days when you need a double, this glass won’t work because it’s just too small. It’s so diminutive that a lime wheel dwarfs it, looking downright silly on its rim. And it’s not for you if you’re the type that likes your glass bowl butterfly-wing thin.

Key Specs

• Capacity: 6 ounces
• Stem length: 3.75 inches
• Weight: 4.72 ounces
• Width of glass from edge to edge: 3.25 inches
• Dishwasher-safe: Yes
• Number in set: 6

Another Great Coupe Glass

BarConic Coupe Glass

$29 at Amazon

What we liked: The thin rim and capacious bowl on these coupe glasses made drinks feel full and substantial. It kept drinks chilled for a decent amount of time, and the thicker stem assured us this wouldn't break readily. This was a perfectly reasonable glass, with nice condensation speckles on the bottom.

What we didn’t like: It does have a slightly deeper bowl than desired for a standard three-ounce martini. Cocktails warmed up quicker than other coupe glasses.

Key Specs

• Capacity: 7 ounces
• Stem length: 2.5 inches
• Weight: 6.48 ounces
• Width of glass from edge to edge: 2.4 inches
• Dishwasher-safe: NA
• Number in set: 4

The Best Budget Coupe Glass

IKEA STORHET Champagne Coupe

$6 at Ikea

What we liked: For the price, this sturdy, ample glass performed well enough to have us ordering more of them. Though its bowl is larger than others, it’s still shallow enough that the 4-ounce martini and daiquiri we served in it didn’t look too short. The slightly concave sides hold the drink in place nicely; you just don’t have to worry about it sloshing. It might not have kept the drinks as cold as others, but it’s good for bigger parties. With such a sturdy, solid design, including a rather thick stem, you don’t have to worry about breakage (though at this price, it’s not a big deal to replace it).

What we didn’t like: Though the concave sides help funnel the aroma of the cocktail, the wide bowl counteracts that efficiency and it tends to dissipate the chill of the drink. Also, the thickness of the glass was too much for the lime wheel, which flopped off the rim and into the daiquiri.

Key Specs (Per Glass)

• Capacity: 10 ounces
• Stem length: 3.75 inches
• Weight: 6.67 ounces
• Width of glass from edge to edge: 4 inches
• Dishwasher-safe: Yes
• Number in set: 1 

The Competition

• Bacador Champagne Coupe Glass: The thickness of the material and the height of the stem toe the line between elegance and sturdiness. You feel sophisticated drinking out of it but without fear of easily breaking it. Though the tapered bowl helps displace some liquid, a 4-ounce pour still looks like someone drank half your daiquiri. This was one of our original winners, but it is frequently out of stock.
• Riedel Veritas Coupe: With its signature, paper-thin crystal with its tall, slender stem, this coupe glass enhances the look of a home bar. But the bowl was entirely too big and wide to keep a reasonable-sized cocktail cold and breakage was a risk.
• Barconic Coupe: While these were very sturdy, we found that the bowl was too wide and shallow to keep drinks adequately cold over the 15-minute test interval.
• Libbey Paneled Coupe: If you’re going to go for texture, then you care about looks, so why choose one that looks so machine-made with a seam down the middle of the bowl? It was also too shallow to keep drinks chilly over several sips.
• JoyJolt Bloom Coupe Crystal Glasses: Though we liked how the tulip shape funneled the aroma of the cocktail upwards, our glass cabinets just aren’t tall enough to stow this coupe glass, and the bowl of the glass was so deep that a 3-ounce cocktail looked tiny in it.
• Godinger Champagne Coupe Barware Glasses: It looks more like something you’d use to serve sherbet than a cocktail, and it was so heavy that was cumbersome to use. Plus, there was just nothing elegant about sipping from that extra-thick glass.
• Nude Glass Savage Coupe Glasses: Though it’s not quite as delicate as the Riedel, this glass was tall and thin enough that we were afraid of breaking it during serving or washing. Its bowl was also so shallow that drinks warmed up too quickly in it.
  

FAQs

What exactly is a coupe glass and why is it called that?

A coupe glass is a stemmed cocktail glass with a fairly round bowl with straight sides, rather than those angled in a V-shape like a modern-style martini glass. It’s basically a small, wide bowl on a stem. There are a few theories as to its name, but the most probable one is that it is named for the French word for “cup,” which is “coupe.” 

What would you ideally use a coupe glass for?

Though originally designed in the 1660s to hold Champagne, the coupe glass isn’t everyone’s favorite for sparkling wine, as the bubbles tend to dissipate quickly in its open bowl. Many argue it’s better, in fact, for cocktails that are served “up,” i.e. without ice. With its old-timey feel, it brings pre-Prohibition-like flare to brandy crustas, sidecars, Manhattans, daiquiris, Negroni variations, and even martinis—particularly ones served small and wet, as they were historically imbibed.

How big is a traditional coupe glass?

Compared to the monstrous, V-shaped martini glasses of the 1990s, vintage coupe glasses are on the smaller side—usually four or five ounces. But the optimal size depends on what kinds of drinks you're serving, though we found six ounces hit the sweet spot for most up drinks.

What's the best size for a coupe glass?

Most cocktails are based on a 3- to 4-ounce volume, so a coupe glass needs to be at least five ounces. At the same time, glasses that are too big look underfilled, and can be tricky to sip from. The ideal size for a coupe glass is right around six to seven ounces, with a little wiggle room for personal preference.

Why We're the Experts

• Betsy Andrews is a writer and a James Beard and IACP-nominated journalist.
• She previously worked at Saveur and Zagat.
• To find the best coupe glasses, she tested nine of them. She evaluated how comfortable they were to hold and drink from, how easy they were to clean, and more.