Duralex Gigogne

Start with what goes into it most often. Pour water with a meal into the 16 cl: small enough to refill often, low enough to stand beside a plate. If you would rather pour once, take the 36 cl, which also leaves room for ice. The 22 cl tea glass sits exactly in between.

All three stack, and in a full cupboard that saves you half a shelf. If you are after the same tempered glass with facets, look at the other Duralex glasses. If you prefer to compare on capacity, the sizes stand side by side among the water glasses and the tumblers.

The 36 cl is the size that cocktails fit into. Muddle a caipirinha straight in the glass: lime and cane sugar at the bottom, crushed ice on top, cachaca over that. For a cuba libre, fill the same glass with ice, rum and cola and squeeze a wedge of lime over it. The thick wall holds the cold and stands up to muddling better than a thin-walled glass.

The 22 cl tea glass is meant for hot tea and does just as well with fresh mint or an espresso with warm milk. Pour hot drinks in gently, and do not hold an ice-cold glass under a boiling tap.

Gigogne glasses are made of tempered glass: after forming, they are cooled quickly, which puts the outer layer under stress. That makes the wall stronger than ordinary soda-lime glass and means it falls apart into blunt granules rather than shards if it breaks.

They go in the dishwasher without any trouble. Do not stack them inside one another there, because two wet glasses suck themselves together. Limescale comes off with a splash of vinegar in the rinsing water.

If this is not the right fit, the alternative is close at hand. For hot drinks, all the tea glasses are gathered together, from thin-walled to double-walled. If you are mainly looking for tools rather than glassware, look at the cocktail shakers, where you will also find jiggers, bar spoons and strainers. And if you want to know what belongs in a tumbler this size, the recipes above give you the ratio and the right kind of ice for each drink.