Drink Whiskey Out Of a Glencairn Glass
Drink Whiskey Out Of a Glencairn Glass
Lawrence Reaves
Drinking whiskey should be enjoyed. This can mean a lot of things for you to consider. Not the least of which is choosing a glass to drink it from. In order to recognize the value of and enjoy the unique flavor of whiskey, you would need a special style of glass.
A Glencairn glass is a well-known whiskey glass design. This is actually preferred by many people who take whiskey and whiskey-drinking seriously. It was an original design by Raymond Davidson, Managing Director of Glencairn Crystal Ltd. based in Scotland.
The glass was first used around 2001 and is now used almost exclusively by the whiskey industry. With over a million glasses in use in restaurants, bars, and retailers worldwide, Glencairn glasses are the most common whiskey glass available today and are renowned for their ability to handle forceful use.
A Glencairn glass is approximately 115 millimeters (about 4.5 inches) in height and made of crystal, either lead-free crystal, 24% lead crystal, or the soda lime variety. The bottom half of the glass is heavy and this, along with the glass’s unique design, makes the glass able to resist most actions that can be made by drinkers to tip over the glass or spill its contents. For people who have to deal with whiskey-drinkers who can sometimes have little control over their movements, this kind of design can be a blessing.
The shape of the Glencairn glass is similar to the copita glasses, which are stemmed glasses with round bottoms that taper to a smaller opening at the top. Copita glasses are used in many whiskey laboratories around Scotland usually for nosing, that is, letting the nose get near the liquid in order to make out the scents of its individual ingredients.
This shape can ease tasting the whiskey and its broad bottom half allows the drinker to swirl the whiskey for to make its unique aromas or smells in the liquid break out and add to the drinking experience.
Some people, however, do not like the copita-shape (also referred to as tulip-shape) of these glasses since they believe that the design tends to enhance the whiskey’s aroma too much and disguise the spirit of the malt, which is the essence of the whiskey. Whiskey-enthusiasts with big noses also have trouble drinking or nosing from this shape of glass.
Because of this, many whiskey drinkers prefer to use the old-fashioned, whiskey tumblers. Either round or square in shape, whiskey tumblers are usually made of crystal and are about 4 to 5 inches high, but they do not have stems. The sides of this type of glass are either straight or slightly angled outwards so that the upper openings are wide.However, whiskey tumblers tend to let the aromas of the whiskey escape before the actual drinking part and thus lessening the whole drinking experience.
There is no correct or incorrect way to drink whiskey. However, since it is not an ordinary kind of drink, in terms of cost and quality, you should choose the right kind of drinking glass as well as make sure that the overall drinking experience counts.
Lawrence Reaves is a freelance writer working for a online marketing ideas company and writes about his passions such as single malt scotch whiskey which is always to be served in a scotch whiskey glass, better known as a Glencarin Glass.
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