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What is the original margarita glass?

The margarita is one of the most popular cocktails in the world. This classic cocktail is typically made with tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice, served over ice in a salt-rimmed glass. While the margarita can be served in a variety of glassware today, there is much debate over what the “original” margarita glass really was.

The Invention of the Margarita

The origins of the margarita are murky, with several different stories about who invented the drink and where it was first made. According to one tale, the margarita was invented in 1938 by Dallas socialite Margaret “Margarita” Sames. As the story goes, she concocted the drink at her Acapulco vacation home and served it to her guests in cocktail glasses. Other origin stories credit the drink’s creation to Carlos “Danny” Herrera in Tijuana in the late 1930s or to Francisco “Pancho” Morales at his Mexico City bar Morales Bar in 1942.

The first published recipe for a margarita appeared in the December 1953 issue of Esquire magazine. The recipe called for an ounce of tequila, a dash of triple sec, and the juice of half a lime or lemon. It instructed: “Pour over crushed ice, stir. Rub the rim of a stem glass with rind of lemon or lime, spin in salt – pour, and sip.” This early recipe did not specify which type of glass to use.

Early Glassware Options

In the early days, margaritas were likely served in whatever glassware a bar had on hand. Here are some of the most common types of glasses that may have been used:

  • Old Fashioned glass: Short tumblers with straight sides
  • Rocks glass: Short tumblers with a heavy base
  • Coupe glass: Wide-bowled glass with a stem
  • Champagne glass: Tall, narrow glass with a stem
  • Cocktail glass: V-shaped glass with a stem
  • Wine glass: Stemmed glass with a wide, open bowl

Any of these glasses could have potentially been used to serve margaritas from the 1930s when it was invented through the 1950s when the drink was still relatively unknown.

The Chimney Glass

In the early 1960s, a Southern California company called Libbey Glass began producing a tall, straight-sided glass which they marketed as a “chimney glass.” This glass, also known as a chimney cocktail glass or candleholder glass, had sides measuring 3-1/4 inches tall and a mouth of 2-3/8 inches wide.

The chimney glass was quickly embraced by bars and restaurants for serving margaritas. Its elegant simplicity was the perfect vessel for displaying the cocktail’s layers of ingredients – the salted rim, then the blended ice, followed by the pale green-yellow tequila mixture. The straight sides also made the drink easy to grip.

Dimension Measurement
Height 3-1/4 inches
Diameter 2-3/8 inches

Unlike a cocktail glass, the chimney glass had no stem. This allowed it to maintain stability when heavily loaded with ice and ingredients. The chimney shape came to be closely associated with margaritas in the 60s and 70s.

Popularity in Restaurants

Many popular restaurants adopted the chimney glass for their house margaritas around this time, helping cement its reputation as the quintessential margarita vessel. For example:

  • The Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles put their famous margaritas in chimney glasses, as did other restaurants later opened by former Brown Derby employees.
  • Danny’s Palm Isle in Galveston, Texas used the chimney glass for the margaritas that fueled their rise as a Tex-Mex and Jimmy Buffett hotspot in the 1960s.
  • Houlihan’s restaurants chose the chimney glass for the chain’s famous Original Houlihan’s Margarita introduced in 1972.
  • At his Los Angeles restaurant El Torito, Larry Cano began pairing chimney glasses with his freshly-mixed margaritas in 1954. The combination was so successful he expanded El Torito into a hugely popular chain.

By the 1970s, the chimney glass had become such a familiar symbol of margaritas that in 1977 both Neiman Marcus and the liqueur brand Grand Marnier released margarita kits that came with chimney glasses.

The Evolution of Margarita Glassware

While the chimney glass is often considered the original and quintessential margarita glass, other types of margarita glassware emerged over the decades:

Margarita or Coupette Glass

In the late 1970s, a new style of margarita glass began gaining popularity. These glasses had a wide, bowl-shaped rim that curved inward to a short stem. They were akin to a large-bowled cocktail or martini glass.

Libbey Glass produced a “margarita glass” in this shape in the late 70s. Other glassmakers followed suit with their own “margarita glass” or “coupette glass” versions. These wider-bowled glasses increasingly displaced the straight-sided chimney glass by the 1980s.

Footed Glass

Around the turn of the 21st century, many restaurants switched their margarita service to footed glasses. These glasses have a wide, bowl-shaped rim like the coupette glass but are supported by a wide, flat base rather than a delicate stem.

Footed margarita glasses tend to be much larger and heavier than their predecessors. The sturdy base provides stability for giant, overflowing drinks topped with garnishes. The bigger capacity allows the use of crushed ice to chill down the margaritas.

Mason Jar

Mason jars moved from the canning shelf to the bar in the early 2000s. These durable, straight-sided jars emerged as an on-trend, informal glass choice. Their old-fashioned look struck a chord with hip urban bars aiming for a cool, retro vibe.

Bars soon adapted mason jars into margarita glasses by simply adding a salted rim and a straw. The casual appearance and quirky imperfection of mason jars helped drive the margarita’s transition from a fancy cocktail to a folksy, accessible drink.

Conclusion

While numerous types of glassware have been pressed into service for margaritas over the decades, the iconic chimney glass is most widely considered the original, authentic vessel for this classic cocktail. The chimney glass’s rise to prominence in the 1960s and 70s closely paralleled the meteoric ascent of the margarita itself during these decades.

The margarita undoubtedly would have been served in ordinary glasses when it was an obscure regional cocktail in the 1930s and 40s. But it was the embrace of the chimney glass in the postwar era that helped transform the margarita from just another mixed drink into America’s beloved – and well-branded – national cocktail.

Today the margarita may arrive in everything from dainty stemware to family-style pitchers. But for many margarita aficionados, the chimney glass remains the defining glass that originally gave margaritas their iconic shape and style.