This could be dangerous.

Most people of legal drinking age have at some point mastered the necessary spatial relation between wine and standard glass to allow themselves an enjoyable portion while not getting totally sloppy after one initial serving. Riedel's new suite of machine-blown TriO red and white wine tumblers blows that all to hell. Their groundbreaking sans-stem O Tumbler takes a cue from the Champagne and beer end of the product line to reunite with a beehived, hollow base that's ridiculously pleasing the hand, and ever so easy to over-fill.

F'rinstance, the (very) generous pour in the dime-a-dozen IKEA glass on the right is the same quantity as seen in the TriO on the left. I tend to be a glass-oughta-be-full kind of girl, and found myself having to quite consciously refrain from serving right on up to the usual mark. There are worse problems to have, and these glasses are possessed of none of them. As mentioned before, the grooved stem is a treat to hold, the design quite visually appealing, and, joy of joys, they're dishwasher-friendly.

At $30 for a three-pack, they're not quite IKEA cheap, but they're hardly a $106 Sommelier's Grüner Veltliner Glass, either. The wine, by the way, is a $10.99 2004 Kanonkop Kadette from South Africa's Stellenbosch region and if you can't find it in a store near you, it's prolly because I went in and bought all of it. Sorry.

Every good beer drinker knows drinking out of the bottle is a no-no (Busch Light drinkers excluded). The only way to get the full nose and aroma is to pour that bottled brew into the proper glassware.

Still, sometimes having your buddy turn to you and ask, "Don't you want a glass for that?" can be equally annoying. Beer snobbery has become as growing a concern to the casual beer drinker almost as much as seasonal beer food pairings have been worrying the aforementioned beer snob.

Well, finally someone has come up with a solution. Fred & Friends has produced the Hopside Down beer glass. This glassware is designed to look like a longneck beer bottle, but turned upside-down with the bottom sliced off. The effect: The look of drinking out of a bottle but leaving an open air environment to let your nose enjoy all those precious hop and malt scents.

I haven't actually tried these glasses yet, so I can't vouch for their quality, but they certainly look cool. (And people who drink beer always do it to look cool!)

[via Al Dente]

If you're like me, this week is probably prime holiday gift purchasing time. Black Friday mayhem has well since waned, but plenty of days are still left before I have to pay the FedEx Overnight tax on my tardiness.

If you have a beer lover in your family, you're in luck: Continued growth in the craft and specialty beer markets means more beer-related products than ever before are hitting store shelves and web retailers, many of them new for the 2008 season.

Case in point: One of the world's oldest glass manufacturers, Spiegelau, has introduced a new line of "Beer Classics" -- glassware shaped for traditional beer drinkers' tastes, but with an eye towards innovation (pictured above). After spending the past 500 years primarily focusing on wine-related products, Spiegelau's Beer Classics apply that experience and expertise to creating lightweight pints with the delicate feel you'd expect from wine stemware, quickly becoming the most elegant of my go-to glasses. With each two glass set packaged in attractive and shipping-friendly tubes, these make great last minute gifts. I even saw them sitting register-side at a local beer shop which can feed into anyone's gift purchasing laziness.

But if you're not looking to drop $30 on a couple of beer glasses (especially if your favorite beer enthusiast tends to break more than he washes), here's another great gift idea that can have a personal touch: Buying branded glassware direct from a beloved brewery. Most breweries offer glassware on their website. The prices can be (please note, I say "can be," not "are") more reasonable and you know your purchase isn't just supporting your favorite brewery in appearance, but financially as well.

Whether your approach is upmarket or down-home, beer glassware is always a great gift, and one that can (and should) be used immediately! (Yes! I am advocating testing our your new beer glass on Christmas morning!)

[Photo Credit: Spiegelau]

Several years ago, wine charms entered the marketplace and became all the rage. They were cute little doodads that you slipped onto the stem of your wine glass during parties, making it easier to determine which glass was yours out of the sea of glassware on the coffee table. I always liked the idea of wine charms, but in practice, I found them sort of fussy and far to easy to lose in the post-party cleaning up process.

I've always dealt with the problem of glass confusion by using my collection of mismatched glasses for all party drinks, wine, beer and soda included. However, last night I discovered another option that, I must admit, has got me swooning over glassware for the first time in my life. Check out these fantastic chalkboard glasses! Write a quick note on the glass prior to pouring and never again risk getting a swig of your date's drink instead of your own. I imagine that with a little chalkboard paint and some cheap glasses, this could also turn into a fun DIY project.

I love it when I find kitchen stuff that I would actually buy. I tend to be pretty picky and frugal, but every once in a while I come across something that speaks to me and invites me to spend my hard-earned money on it.

This pair of beautiful double-walled, hand-blown glass cruets made in the Czech Republic would look absolutely perfect on my kitchen counter. They're available from the MoMA store, and are really quite reasonable at $52 for the pair. Maybe for my next splurge!

[via The Food Section]

Scrolling through my daily Thrillist email blast, I found a tout for "Sommelier Wine Glasses." Ever feigning an earnest and legitimate interest/knowledge of wine, I clicked through, only to find this truly stellar stemware.

These kegger-cups-cum-wine-glasses are ideally suited for people like me who pretend to care about Viticulture, but are actually throwin' back jugs of Carlo Rossi.

Just remember, these are hand-blown glass, so try and refrain from playing Wine Pong. (Or worse, Flip Cup.)

You don't always have the baking pan that a recipe calls for, but here's what you can do when you need to use something else.

The fashion in wine glasses is for them to be varietal, which means that the shape of each glass is specifically designed to enhance the flavor and aroma of that type of wine. It also means that connoisseurs have to buy a lot more stemware if they want to have the best experience with their favorite wine. A new type of glass, the Zafferano Esperienze glass, promises to be the ultimate in wine tasting. These glasses are varietal and come in 15 different shapes. The rippling at the base of each glass is designed to allow the wine to develop its optimal flavor by giving it maximum exposure to the surface of the glass.

The glasses were recently recommended by David Rosengarten (who loved them) and mentioned in the New York Times, so perhaps there is more to their design than just hype. They are $29.99 for four and will be available at Macy's, followed by Bloomingdale's and Bed, Bath & Beyond, later this month.