Best glasses for an Aperol spritz

The spritz is one of the few classic drinks specified by ratio rather than by volume, which is why glass size catches people out. The standard build is three parts prosecco to two parts Aperol with a splash of soda, and in practice that is around 3 oz of prosecco, 2 oz of Aperol and an ounce of soda - roughly 6 oz of liquid before anything else goes in.

Then comes the ice, and a spritz wants a lot of it. A full charge of cubes in a tumbler displaces well over half the glass, which is the whole design of the drink: the ice keeps a low-alcohol, high-acid aperitivo cold and lengthens it slowly as you sit with it. Fill a 12 oz glass with ice and you have perhaps 5 oz of usable volume, which means you are now building a smaller drink than the ratio describes.

Finally the orange. A proper spritz garnish is a full wheel or a thick half-wheel of orange sitting in the drink, not a wedge balanced on the rim, and it displaces real volume. That is why 16 or 17 oz with a 3.25 inch mouth is the right specification and 12 oz is the compromise - the mouth width is as important as the capacity, because a narrow glass will not take a wheel at all.

Tumbler or stem? Both are correct. Venice serves spritzes in large stemmed wine glasses; most of the rest of the world serves them in a tall tumbler, and a tumbler is sturdier outdoors and easier to stack. If you want the stemmed version, a large bowl wine glass is the object to look for.

All figures from the listings we link. The last column is the question that actually decides it - a spritz is an outdoor drink more often than not.

Notice that the two 12 oz glasses are both sold by the six and the two larger glasses by the four. That is not a coincidence - glassware gets sold in the quantity its use case implies, and a spritz is a drink you make several of at once. If you host, buying six of something slightly small often beats buying four of the correct size. Best glassware sets for a home bar works through that set-size decision properly.

A spritz is mostly ice by volume, so the ice is doing most of the work on how the drink tastes twenty minutes in. Small, wet, cloudy freezer-tray ice melts fast and turns a spritz watery and flat before you finish it. Larger, denser cubes keep the ratio recognizable for much longer, which is the difference between a spritz that stays bracing and one that becomes orange soda.

That makes a spritz one of the better arguments for clear ice at home, even though it is not a spirit-forward drink. You do not need a 2-inch cube - a tall glass wants a column of medium cubes rather than one rock - but you do want ice that is cold and dense rather than frosted and hollow. How to make clear ice is the method and best clear ice molds is the equipment.

Fill the glass with ice before anything else goes in, then pour the prosecco first and the Aperol second. Pouring the sparkling wine onto ice rather than onto Aperol preserves more carbonation, and adding the Aperol afterwards lets it fall through the glass and mix itself with almost no stirring - a spritz should be stirred once with a bar spoon at most. How to stir a cocktail covers why more stirring than that costs you bubbles.

A 16 oz cooler is a genuinely useful glass to own beyond one drink. It is the right size for a Collins, a Paloma, a long gin and tonic, an iced tea and a glass of soda water with a lot of ice - essentially everything tall. If you only buy one tall glass, buy the largest one you have room for, because a short drink in a tall glass looks fine while a long drink in a short glass does not.

The 12 to 12.5 oz glasses sit in the standard highball slot, which is the shape a Japanese-style highball or a whisky and soda is built in. That shape is the subject of its own category. Best highball glasses and highball glass size guide cover the sizing in detail, and highball vs rocks glass covers the choice between tall and short.

On material, the summary is short. Pressed glass is cheap, thick and replaceable and belongs in the roles where glasses get handled by guests. Tritan crystal is the version you can put through a dishwasher and still call crystal. Tempered glass like the Duralex is the one to take outside. Crystal vs glass drinkware is the full material argument.