Martini Glasses Are Overrated—Here’s the Drinkware I Use Instead

This cookbook author always reaches for it post-cocktail testing.
Samantha Weiss-Hills Avatar
Photography by Joann Pai

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When I hopped on the phone with Paris-based writer Rebekah Peppler earlier this month, I told her that one shot from her new cookbook, Le Sud, caught my eye. (She’s also penned Apertif  and À Table.) It wasn’t the glowing panoramics of the Mediterranean Sea or the beautifully set table of le grande aïoli or even the glorious scenes photographed in La Pitchoune, Julia Child’s once-vacation home. It was a clean, ethereal image of her clad in a Bourrienne shirt and Ina Beissner jewelry, delicately holding a tumbler full of what she calls a martini provençal. 

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Peppler would take a vintage tumbler over a martini glass any day. Photography by Joann Pai

“I’ll absolutely go on the record with my dislike for martini glasses,” Peppler declared. “They’re unwieldy; I spill. I don’t really want to use a glass that I feel very precious with and might break.” While long-legged versions from The White Lotus might have dominated last year, Peppler is staunchly behind the more squat proportions of an in-the-palm glass. That is to say: There’s more than one way to enjoy a martini—and it doesn’t have to be from an upside-down triangle. Below, Peppler tells Domino how she takes hers and we reveal our tumbler picks for your next round.

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Photography by Joann Pai

How do you like your martini? 

I like a 50-50 gin-vermouth martini over ice. I drink them regularly. I’m not precious about it. I would batch it, keep it chilled, and bring it on a picnic or to a friend’s house with a stack of Duralex glasses

If not in a martini glass, then what? 

There’s so many other options that I find are just better in my hand. You could use a Nick and Nora. You could use the Mamo glasses styled in Le Sud; I love their stuff. With a gorgeous silver toothpick, you can really make it feel very fancy without actually adding much. And sure, If I’m going to go to a fancy cocktail bar, I want it to be done up in a coupe. 

But at home, a tumbler is what I reach for. It adds a bit of weight and makes it more accessible. And if I do spill, I’m just losing a little liquid and not breaking the glass. If you don’t need to see the color of your martini, I love a ceramic glass. We use our coffee cups at night often. We have a lot of friends who are ceramists, so we have a lot of their pieces, and I like to use them outside of just coffee. 

But won’t a martini get warm served that way?

Try the martini provençal; it’s a lower ABV martini with equal parts gin and vermouth, and then I add sherry to it. It’s a strong drink, but I don’t find it to be a drink that I want to sit for too long. I want it to be ice cold. So I don’t really care if my hands are touching the glass because I think it should be drunk pretty quickly. I think: Drink faster and serve less. 

I guess martini glasses are hard to store, too, huh? 

Exactly. It’s really hard with martini glasses. They take up so much space on a shelf, and I don’t find them necessarily pleasing to look at, anyway.

10 Martini-Worthy Tumblers

Duralex Picardie Glass Tumblers, Set of 6, Williams Sonoma

$30
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Ichendorf Milano Gray Poseidon Tumbler Set, Set of 6, Ssense

$65
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Fritter Tumbler Set, Sophie Lou Jacobsen

$110
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LSA Gio Tumblers, Set of 4, Amazon

$35 $32.55
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Essential Small Glassware, Set of 4, Hawkins New York

$32
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Enamelware Tumbler, Schoolhouse

$14
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Serax Fish & Fish Medium Glasses by Paola Navone, Set of 4, Food52

$52
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Essential Stacking Double Old-Fashioned Drinking Glasses, Set of 4, West Elm

$28
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Bodega 7 oz Glasses, Set of 12, Crate & Barrel

$33
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Lorraine Tumblers, Set of 6, Lulu and Georgia

$84
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This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Samantha Weiss-Hills Avatar

Samantha Weiss-Hills

Managing Editor, Home & Shopping

Samantha Weiss-Hills is the managing editor of home and shopping for Domino. She edits and writes home tours, shopping guides, and features, and she’s the friend who everyone texts for glassware, sofa, and sheet recommendations. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Alex, and their beagle-corgi, Elsa.