If you've ever been to Europe or a Brooklyn apartment, you've probably seen a bodega glass. Made of thin, tempered glass, it has a wide mouth, straight sides, and an overall look that manages to be unassuming and inexplicably chic at the same time, like a French teenager in jeans and white sneakers.
Bormioli Rocco—the Italian glassmaking company that's been around since the Middle Ages—makes them in a variety of sizes, but the most versatile are the7.5-ounce mini tumblers.They're lightweight but durable; elegant enough for serveware but functional enough to used as a kitchen tool. You can serve a très chicpanna cottain them, or a scoop of ice cream drizzled in olive oil and flaky salt. You can use them tomis out prepped ingredientsor to serve sauce alongside a main. You can store hundreds of them in a tiny cabinet, stacked on top of one another.
It's common for bars in Italy and Spain to serve wine in a bodega tumbler rather than a standard wine glass (you're still getting a 5-ounce pour). When I drink out of my bodega glasses at home (a Brooklyn apartment), I feel like I'm on vacation in Europe, which does in fact make the wine taste better. It makes having a glass of wine not feel like a special occasion done with a lot of pomp and ceremony, but a casually cool totally regular thing to do. When I have people over, it's rare that at least one person doesn't compliment them.
I'm far from the first person to wax poetic about these glasses. They make it into tons ofglassware roundupsand they're thefavorite kitchen itemof anextremely popular lifestyle bloggerwho definitely knows about what's cool way before me. But originality is over-rated and the popularity only speaks to the cultish quality of these simple glasses. I use them more than anything else in my kitchen.
The icing on the cake is that a set of 12 only costs around $30. At around $2 each, one is a good contender for a throwing glass when you're full of rage, but want to make it trendy and Italian. (Good luck breaking them, though. The tempered glass means these deceptively delicate suckers are actually quite hard to break.)
So, join the cult. Buy the glasses. You won't regret it.
