RCR Ego

The two wine bowls look alike, but you notice the difference in use. The 50 cl has a wider belly and more contact surface, so full-bodied red wine opens up faster in it. The 43 cl is the bowl you can use for both colours and it takes up less room in the cupboard. The 39 cl water glass stands on the table without a foot and doubles as the glass in which you serve whisky over an ice cube. The 50 cl highball glass is the tall, narrow shape for anything with ice and tonic or a soft drink alongside.

Fill a wine bowl to about a third, so around 15 cl in the 50 cl glass. In the highball glass it works the other way round: build it up with ice before you pour, because the ice then melts more slowly and your drink is watered down less. That is how you make a gin and tonic in it, pouring the tonic along a bar spoon so the fizz stays in. The low water glass is the shape for built drinks with little volume, such as a Negroni over one large ice cube.

RCR makes Ego from lead-free crystal glass, which is harder than ordinary drinking glass and can therefore have a thinner rim without chipping straight away. All models may go in the dishwasher. Choose a programme that does not get too hot and let the glasses cool down calmly before you take them out, because sudden temperature differences are the greatest strain on any thin-walled glass.

The full range from this brand is under RCR. If you would rather search by shape, you will find all red wine glasses, highball glasses and whisky glasses together, and the sparkling shapes sit with the champagne flutes. If you regularly make shaken cocktails, a cocktail shaker belongs with these glasses, because a drink that goes into the glass already chilled and diluted stays in balance far longer than one you only chill in the glass itself.