Glassware to Stock Your Home Bar: Versatile Kitchenware for Your Favorite Drinks

Whether your home bar is a cupboard drawer or twelve-seat behemoth, proper glassware is paramount to drinking an alcoholic beverage the way it's meant to be enjoyed. And while bar glassware can be used for nonalcoholic beverages, the same doesn't always hold true for nonalcoholic glassware when it's used to hold alcoholic beverages. Stocking your home bar can be as frugal or expensive as your budget allows. Stores like IKEA have inexpensive sets that do the trick, or you can splurge on Riedel glassware.

The following is a broad list of glassware by alcoholic beverage. Each category has three subdivisions: Good, Better and Best. If you're looking for the basics to get started, the Good category is for you. If you're looking for a respectable selection of glassware, but nothing too extravagant or space-consuming, Better is appropriate for you. Pick Best if it's especially important for you to have the finest, best array of glassware around.

Beer
It's easy to get carried away with beer glasses. Most breweries worldwide release a uniquely shaped branded glass for each beer they release; in Belgium alone these number in the thousands. Serving beer in the proper glassware does enhance its aroma and help develop its flavor. However, you don't need to stock hundreds of glasses just for beer. These glasses do double duty as water, soda or juice tumblers.

Good: A basic pint glass.
Better: A tall pilsner glass, a tulip-shaped glass, and a chalice.
Best: Pilsner glasses, tulip-shaped glasses and chalices-by brand.

Wine
There are dozens of schools of thought here. Stem or no stem, big or small-the supply and type of wine glasses is unending.

Good: A thinner white wine glass and a rounder, fuller red wine glass.
Better: White and red wine glasses, plus a few expensive goblets to swirl and sip expensive wine.
Best: An assortment of glasses by grape.