A hole in my shot glass collection

You can't shop for shot glasses, they must find you

During the pandemic Americans were subjected to depleted supermarket shelves and shortages of various kinds. But our household is facing a shortage peculiar to us. Only to me, in fact.

Were you to ask my wife — please don’t — she’d have no idea what you were talking about, even though she’s the approximate cause of our scarcity.

Lately, I’ve suffered a couple of small but painful losses to my shot glass collection. It’s not really accurate to call it a collection. To me a collection signifies the involvement of a passionate collector who makes a focused effort to accumulate the objects in question; be it comic books, baseball cards or Picassos.

That doesn’t describe my shot glasses. They’re purely utilitarian. They don’t sit in a locked cabinet or in a safe deposit box. They’re called into service on a regular, sometimes nightly, basis. Not all 20 of them, of course. By the way, I’m not sure it’s 20. Could be 10. Could be 30. I’ve never counted them. That’s how disinterested I am in sanctifying them.

They serve a single purpose. And that purpose is to shock and soothe the central nervous system by delivering 80 proof alcohol directly to my belly. I typically deploy no more than one or two of these torpedoes an evening.

But I have specific shot glasses for specific moods and occasions. One of them features a snowy woodland scene. I use that when it’s cold outside and I want to feel warm inside. Others spark memories of previous good times.

The name has worn off of one shot glass after countless dishwasher wash and rinse cycles, but it comes from a favorite seafood restaurant in Venice. A third features the façade of the White House etched into the crystal. I acquired that at their employee gift shop when I spent several days in Washington reporting on the Clinton administration. It typically makes an appearance on election nights, especially if my candidate is locked in a tight race.

The crisis began — I don’t think I’m overreacting when I describe the situation in dire terms — when my spouse decided that our kitchen shelves were too cluttered and that additional room needed to be made for glassware. Though somehow the only thing that seemed to go was my Playboy shot glass.

I bought it at a yard sale a few years back for less than a dollar; apparently the seller’s wife must have felt the same way mine does and wanted it out of the house. It features a female wearing little more than leggings and long evening gloves. I don’t find it titillating in the least. When I raise it to my lips I feel as if I’m engaging in a purely political act; I’m leading the charge against wokeness, if only within the confines of my own kitchen.

My spouse reports that the shot glass had found a happy new home in our basement. Since I don’t drink in the basement I don’t know what good it does down there. I can’t find it no matter how hard I look. My wife claims she knows exactly where she put it and will retrieve it as soon as she has a moment. Thousands of moments have passed since then.

I get no sympathy over the loss from friends, especially female friends. “EBay them!,” one wrote when I complained about the disappearance. “You can’t take them out and use them now without seeming horribly skeevy.” That’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Were that affront to my quality of life insufficient, my better half just broke another favorite shot glass. I know this was an accident and she was reasonably repentant. There was no symbolism behind the vessel. It was a simple, elegant flute, its sole decoration an air bubble trapped in its heavy base. I seem to recall I purchased it on Madison Avenue in New York City at Georg Jensen, the Danish design store. But the shop closed during the pandemic and my online searches for a replacement have proved fruitless.

I thought I’d drop by Bloomingdale’s housewares department this week, since I happened to be in the area. I didn’t expect shot glass satisfaction there. But I hadn’t visited the department store, any department store, in years. For all I know it had been turned into a Trader Joe’s. It hadn’t. But their shot glasses were well out of my price range. Typical was a set of six Baccarat crystal jiggers for $780. Who spends almost 800 bucks on shot glasses? Apparently somebody must.

What my visit to Bloomingdale’s proved, if nothing else as I surveyed their glassware department, is that I have strong opinions about shot glasses. For starters, I don’t like colored glass. I like to see what I’m drinking in its natural hue. Weight and shape, what you might call hand feel, are also important. But design may be most determinative of all. Shot glasses, unless you have a drinking problem and perhaps even then, are by definition festive, celebratory. You want something that rises above the mundane, something surprising.

After rooting around Bloomingdale’s for a while I realized there was little likelihood I was going to find something to replace my Georg Jensen glass, certainly not in my yard sale price range. But I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned. You can’t go shopping for shot glasses, they must find you.

Trying to replace a broken shot glass is a fool’s game. It’s like trying to catch lightening in a bottle. The joy will come in finding a new glass that speaks to the moment. For example, my warthog shot glass acquired in a Nairobi hotel gift shop on my way to safari. Or my seahorse and jellyfish shot glass, by far the most I ever spent on one. I purchased it at Rural Residence, alas a defunct home furnishings store of impeccable taste in Hudson, N.Y.

I don’t necessarily associate Hudson with undersea life, though it has a whaling past. I just think jellyfish are underrepresented. I’d kept that shot glass under lock and key for special occasions, fearing it might get damaged. But it’s time for it to step up and claim its rightful place in the pantheon. Especially with my Playboy shot glass unlikely to make an appearance anytime soon.