anything-tini

glassware is absolutely key to the 'biz. a martini is basically a frou-frou way of asking for a shot of hooch, put it in a "i 'heart' st. petersburg" shot glass, and it's a shot of vodka. but you put it in that angular tall stemmed glass with some bleu cheese stuffed olives, shakey shakey, and suddenly it is ab-fab rather than just a crap shot of skyy. martini glasses also make for ultrafancy dessert dishes; i've seen lots of chefs try to extend the martini glass's use into appetizer-land, but ceviche pressed up against clear glass just looks like green tinged brains, so don't do it.

wine glasses are just as important as martinis, and the stem-less trend might work in little italy and be called au-ten-tik, and it would totally work if you're serving the 5.99-er but if you actually are buying a $100+ dollar bottle of wine, and you know what it's supposed to taste like, and want to actually taste it that way, ask for different glasses if you're served stemless from some hip-dip lounge... the heat from your hand will actually affect the temperature of the wine, and if the restaurant's "cellar" is worth it's salt, the thousands they spent on it is worthless if first-daters' sweaty palms make all their wine mulled.

there is a reason for all these different shapes and sizes of glasses... champagne flutes encourage all those bubbles that get you messed up faster on new years and turn the night into "amateur night"... (will tirade on those nights on a later post... )

beer steins with handles... not as chic to look at, but in the arizona heat, when someone invariably wants to sit on a patio, their fingers won't heat up the suds as fast. our hands are 98 degrees on the inside... beer is really good at 45 degrees... do the math. those steins on "cheers" are not just nostalgically pleasant.

the forms of things make things taste different. that is a given in cooking, otherwise we could just eat a piece of pig cut straight off the hog. beverage culinary arts are just as important, and your favorite bartender (and bar manager) need to know that the appeal of alcohol is, at higher pricelines, not solely the fuzzy factor, but the actual culinary factor as well.

and make those martini glasses make it really pretty too.