Jenever & shot glasses

The choice starts with the way you drink. If you want to serve jenever the way it should be, take a spouted glass or a rummer of 3.5 to 6 cl, preferably with a fill line, because a brim-full pour without a line quickly gets out of hand in a bar. If it is about spirits that go down in one go, a straight shot glass of 3 to 6 cl makes more sense: thick glass, heavy base, no stem in the way.

For liqueur that you sip, choose a small glass on a short stem of 7 to 12 cl instead. You fill that glass only halfway, so the aroma stays above the liquid, and you hold it by the stem to avoid warming the drink. Check the number per pack as well: sets of twelve are usual for hospitality, sets of four or six for at home. Anyone carrying glasses around on a tray benefits from a low, wide shape that does not tip over; anyone putting them in a display cabinet may go for the cut crystal.

Jenever is served chilled but not ice-cold, around ten degrees, and you place the glass on the table before filling it. This allows you to fill it to the brim without spilling, and the guest takes the first sip with the glass on the table. Young jenever can come from the freezer, but old jenever loses its malty character there. The combination with beer is called a kopstoot, and the custom is to drink the jenever first and only then the beer.

Shots work differently. You prepare them in advance, chill the bottle rather than the glass, and pour only when serving them. Layered shots such as the B52 are poured slowly over the rounded side of a bar spoon so that the layers do not mix. Liqueur and limoncello are poured in measures of four to six centiliters and served after the meal, although limoncello may come from the freezer.

Small glasses often go through the dishwasher and that is exactly their biggest risk. They are light, so they turn over in the rack, fill with water and knock against each other. Use a rack with compartments or a separate glass basket and place them at an angle rather than straight upside down. Heavily cut crystal, such as the shot glasses from RCR, is better washed by hand if you want to keep the shine.

Sticky liqueur and syrup dry quickly and leave a ring that is hard to remove later. So rinse the glasses straight away with warm water, even if they are only washed later on. Keep glasses with a gold rim, such as the Timeless models from Pasabahce, out of the dishwasher, because the rim visibly wears there. Store these small glasses upright and without pushing them into each other.

Are you specifically looking for small glasses for drinking spirits in one gulp? You’ll find them grouped under shot glasses. For the somewhat larger stemmed glasses, see liqueur glasses, and for the narrow glasses used to serve ice-cold limoncello, see limoncello glasses. If you want to taste rather than drink, then tasting glasses are more suitable, as they capture the aroma better. If you measure out drinks behind a bar, you’ll need a jigger , as it measures more accurately than a glass with measurement markings. Still unsure about the capacity? The questions below answer that.