Editor’s Note: This product was provided to us as a review sample by the party behind it. This in no way, per our editorial policies, influenced the final outcome of this review.
Generally, when I drink whiskey at home… I drink whiskey at home. Not much need to mix it into cocktails or other drinks. But who doesn’t want a great-looking home bar complete with all the extras, regardless?
Mercer Culinary offers everything from kitchen knives to plating spoons and food-processing gloves for chefs, restaurants and caterers. One of its subsidiaries, Barfly by Mercer, offers an equally broad array of barware. With everything from strainers, measurers, and storers to ice picks and bartender aprons, there’s little question it caters to professionals.
Barfly recently rolled out a few new twists on its classic mixing glasses – fundamentally utilitarian vessels, designed to hold ice and all the elements of your mixed drink, so you can stir them together, chill them, and then strain the finished product into serving glasses. Almost anything could serve the purpose, but the discriminating bartender (home or otherwise) might want to class up the joint by using nice-looking glasses, mixing spoons, and strainers.
The new Barfly mixing glasses offer colored 17-ounce options that come in blue, rose, or gold, and have polished reflective interior. As soon as I pulled the blue one out of its box, my wife looked up from across the room and said, “That’s beautiful. It makes me want to find a drink to mix, just to try it out.”
She’s right. It really is striking, more so than any of the previous barware I’ve accumulated over the years.
But Barfly also released a new-look 24-ounce mixing glass with wavy vertical cuts in the glass and a wide-base 25-ounce version featuring a cross-hatched design. Of the two, the 24-ounce version looks more or less like what you’d expect from a traditional mixing glass, while the 25-ounce one definitely looks more distinctive.
All three are dishwasher safe, and I found them selling online for $25 to $40 apiece. All have a seamless interior for mixing, along with useful pour spouts.
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In addition to its knockout good looks, the blue one has the heaviest base of the three. I really like the feel of it in my hand as I mix a drink, and it feels the sturdiest. It only has a two-drink capacity, though, and the mouth of the glass feels a little narrow – like I might spill ice cubes while stirring. (I have a habit of over-filling things.)
The other two have room for three drinks inside, and offer a little more space for my ice cubes, whiskey, and mixers. I especially like the wide base and the pattern on the 25-ounce version, but both do the job just fine.
For years, I made my drinks with plastic mixing glasses. I’d just pour in some ice cubes, add my ingredients and then shake it like crazy before straining the cocktail into a glass. Worked well enough, and still does.
If you want to be a little more stylish, though, glasses like these will certainly do the trick.
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