I’m sitting at the bar at the harborside Barren’s Distillery and Restaurant in Camden, Maine, and I’ve just unboxed what I can’t help but feel are a very fussy pair of tequila tasting glasses.
Not shot glasses, not rocks glasses and nothing you’d splash a batch of frozen margs into. No, these are Riedel’s varietal-specific tequila glasses and I feel very much like a man who—too refined for a dive bar’s in-house billiards set—has shown up with his own pool cue, rack and balls. I am eager to test the glasses, but would settle for not getting laughed out of the place.
Thankfully, Barren’s owner Andrew Stewart is not the type. Instead, he joins me in an impromptu tasting of two tequilas and a mezcal, lining up a shot glass, rocks glass and a tulip-shaped Sherry glass called a “copita” alongside my tequila glasses to assess which brings out the best in the agave spirits.
The Anatomy of a Tequila Glass Like a Champagne flute, a tequila glass has a long slender stem and a long narrow bowl. Wine Enthusiast
If I’m honest, I’d only heard of tequila tasting glasses just a few days prior, and it wasn’t until I spoke to Maximilian Riedel, CEO and president of the venerable Austrian glassware brand, that it became at all clear why a person would need the stemmed glasses, which look as though they’re designed more for Champagne than Cazadores.
“This glass isn’t something we at Riedel said, ‘We must
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
