Coupe vs martini glass

The spill row is not a stylistic judgment. A V-shaped bowl holds its entire volume at the widest point, which is also the highest point, so any tilt moves a lot of liquid toward an edge that offers no resistance.

In a rounded coupe bowl, tilting the glass moves the surface toward a rim that curves back inward slightly. There is a little bit of wall above the liquid working in your favor.

In a V, the widest point is the rim. Tilt it and the liquid goes straight over - there is no geometry between the surface and the outside of the glass. Combine that with a high center of gravity and a narrow foot and you have a glass that punishes a distracted carry.

This is the practical reason bars moved away from it. It is not fashion - it is that a bartender handing a full glass across a bar tops up the V half the time.

Both shapes present a large surface to the room, which means both warm faster than a bell-shaped glass. The V is marginally worse because its surface is at the widest possible diameter for its volume.

For aroma the gap is wider. A rounded coupe has a slight inward curve at the rim, which retains a little of the headspace above the drink. A straight-sided V retains nothing - aromatics rise off the surface and disperse into the room rather than toward your nose.

For a gin martini, where the entire character of the drink is botanical aromatics, that is a genuine loss. It is also why the Nick and Nora shape came back into fashion, and why Nick and Nora vs coupe is a more useful comparison than this one for most people.

A V-shaped martini glass is one of the most recognizable objects in the world. Handing someone a drink in one communicates something no other glass does, and there is nothing wrong with wanting that.

It also genuinely suits a very dry martini with a twist, where there is not much aroma to retain and the drink is meant to be drunk briskly and cold. In that specific case the practical objections mostly evaporate.

The reasonable conclusion: own two V glasses if you love them, and make the coupe or the Nick and Nora your everyday stemware. That way the icon is available when you want it and it is not the glass you are carrying across a room at midnight.

A less obvious difference between these two shapes is how much drink they invite. A coupe at 7 to 9oz filled to a sensible level holds a generous shaken serve. A V-shaped martini glass is frequently larger still, and a large glass filled to look right is a large drink.

That matters more with spirit-forward drinks than with anything else, because a martini is essentially undiluted spirit and a glass that holds eight ounces of it is not serving you well. The vogue for oversized martini glasses through the 1990s is a large part of why the drink acquired its reputation.

A smaller glass is the simplest correction, and it is the practical reason the bell-shaped Nick and Nora keeps being recommended for stirred serves - at 5 to 6oz it sets a sensible portion by construction rather than by restraint. It also means a second drink is a decision you make deliberately rather than one the glassware made for you.

If the drinks you make are shaken and foamy, buy coupes: best coupe glasses. If they are stirred and spirit-forward, buy Nick and Noras: best Nick and Nora glasses.

If they are mostly on the rocks, neither is your purchase - best rocks glasses is the page you want, and the capacity question there matters more than any of this.