Best gifts for martini lovers

How we picked these

• Right for a stirred drink

  Mixing glass, bar spoon, cold glassware. Anything that only makes sense with juice in it is on the wrong list.

• Published capacity

  Glass size decides whether a drink can be carried. Every capacity here is the maker's own figure, not an estimate from a photograph.

• Will it get used on a Tuesday?

  Dishwasher safe beats hand wash for anything a household uses weekly, and we say which is which.

• Does it duplicate what they own?

  Martini drinkers usually own glasses already. The mixing glass is the piece most of them are missing.

Start with the glass

The Libbey Kentfield is the safe gift and the one most martini drinkers would choose for themselves: 10 oz, four glasses, 7.68 inches tall, a reinforced flat foot and dishwasher safe. Ten ounces is the useful size — a standard martini sits below the rim with enough clearance that the glass can be carried from the kitchen to a chair.

The Nick and Nora solves the spill problem by shape. Riedel publishes 4.94 oz and a 6-inch height, with an oblong bowl that curves back in at the top, so tilting it does not immediately pour the drink over your hand. It holds half what the Kentfield does, which suits a drinker who likes a second cold one rather than a large warm one.

The Zwiesel Pure is the upgrade: 12.3 oz Tritan crystal glass, six glasses, made in Germany, dishwasher safe. Tritan is the reason it is here — it is the crystal-look glass that survives a dishwasher, which is unusual at this level. The martini glasses page compares all of them properly, and coupe or martini glass settles the shape argument.

The gift most martini drinkers are missing

Ask someone who drinks martinis what they stir in and the honest answer is usually “the shaker, without the lid” or “a pint glass”. A proper mixing glass is the upgrade they have not bought themselves.

The Viski Admiral is 500 ml of lead-free crystal with a thickset base, faceted sides and a precision pour spout. The spout is the part that matters for a gift: it means the drink can be poured without a separate strainer, so the present works on its own rather than revealing a second thing to buy.

Pair it with a long spoon. The Barfly teardrop bar spoon is weighted at one end so the spoon turns the ice around the glass instead of chopping through it, which is the difference between chilling a drink and grinding it. The mixing glasses page covers sizing, and spoons and muddlers explains what the weighting is for.

What not to buy a martini drinker

Three gifts that look right and land badly:

• Another shaker. They have one, and the drink they love does not use it. If the set you are looking at is built around a shaker, you are buying for a margarita drinker.
• Oversized novelty glasses. A 12 oz V-shaped glass filled to the rim cannot be carried. It photographs well and it lives in a cupboard.
• Vermouth as the whole present. It is a thoughtful addition and a thin gift on its own — and an opened bottle needs refrigerating, which is the kind of instruction nobody wants attached to a present.

What not to buy has the longer version of this list, including the gifts that get used exactly twice.

Building a complete present

Under fifty dollars: the Kentfield glasses on their own, or the Nick and Noras if the recipient is the kind of person who carries a drink to a sofa.

Around a hundred: glasses plus the Viski mixing glass and the Barfly spoon. That is a complete stirred-drinks setup with nothing missing, and it is the version of this gift that gets used every week rather than at Christmas.

Above that: the Zwiesel set of six for a household that entertains, with a big-cube tray as the small extra that improves every stir. For a broader list at each price, gifts for cocktail lovers covers the general case and gifts for vodka drinkers is the better page if their martini is a vodka one.

Cold is the ingredient nobody gift-wraps

A martini is mostly spirit, so there is nothing in it to hide behind: temperature is the difference between a good one and a harsh one. Two of the three ways to get it colder cost nothing at all, which is worth passing on with the present.

Put the glass in the freezer while you make the drink. Ten minutes is plenty, and it keeps the martini at temperature for the length of time anyone takes to drink it. Nothing else you can buy for a martini drinker has that effect for that price.

Stir longer than feels right. Most people stop at ten seconds and the drink is still warm in the middle; thirty seconds against good ice is the standard, and the outside of the mixing glass frosting over is the cue. That is also the argument for big, dense ice — small cubes shed water quickly, so the drink dilutes before it chills. A 2-inch cube tray is a few dollars and it changes every stirred drink in the house.

The third way is the glass itself. A heavy stemmed glass with a proper foot is not just decoration — the stem is there so a warm hand never touches the bowl. It is the reason a martini in a tumbler goes warm and a martini in a stemmed glass does not, and it is the whole case for buying glassware rather than another gadget.

Three martini drinkers, three different presents

The purist owns glasses and drinks gin martinis stirred. Buy the mixing glass and the spoon; they are the pieces this person is most likely to be improvising with.

The host makes two or four at a time when people come over. Buy the six-glass Zwiesel set and a big-cube tray, because their constraint is volume rather than technique.

The new convert has started ordering martinis out and has nothing at home. Buy the Kentfield glasses; they are the object that makes the habit possible, and everything else can follow at the next birthday. How to pick a cocktail gift has the general version of that logic.