Nick & Nora Glasses
Fans of the 1934 Dashiell Hammett mystery novel The Thin Man and the six movies named for it may be forgiven for wondering how the urbane sleuthing couple of Nick and Nora Charles managed to stay on their feet, let alone follow the trail of a criminal. So prodigious is their drinking that few scenes don’t include some kind of cocktail or mixed drink being drained, often with the idea that it will help in processing clues.
Aside from strong constitutions, one reason the former detective and his socialite wife aren’t forever in the bag is their choice of drinking vessels. Which is diminutive. Early in the first film, Nick demonstrates fixing a Martini (always shaken to a waltz time) and pours the cocktail (his sixth of his session) into a glass that would be dwarfed by the beakers that became so popular in the 1950s and ’60s. Nick’s glass of choice had a capacity of about five ounces, while subsequent iterations would hold more like 10 or more—which makes for a raucous three-Martini lunch.
Decades later, such supporters of the cocktail renaissance as Dale DeGroff and Audrey Saunders discovered what they termed the Nick & Nora glass after the movie characters played by William Powell and Myrna Loy. The intent was not purely restraint or nostalgia. The elegantly shaped glass has a narrower mouth than the maw of the birdbath glass. This captures aroma, which otherwise dissipates with more surface area. A straighter rim also prevents the spillage its conical competitor is prone to. Perhaps most importantly, the liquid stays colder during the experience because it is downed faster and the drinker tends to hold the glass by the stem instead of the palm of the hand. When hosting a crowd, you can also serve more guests with a single shaker or pitcher full.
Ultimately, the movies (and the glass) gave imbibing a more sophisticated image in the years following the overindulgences of Prohibition, but we still don’t recommend detective work after a half dozen cocktails, no matter what the size.
