Tube City

I don't get this whole test tube shot glass thing. Someone explain it to me.

I just ran across this here set of Michael Collins Irish Whiskey test tube shot glasses on the eBay, and though they certainly appeal to my steampunk sensibilities, I just can't see myself sitting around holding these damn things.

I like to sip my whiskey slowly, even when it's just a shot. These particular Collins tubes are perfectly identical to laboratory glassware, with rounded bottoms, so you can't just set them down, you have to keep holding them. And the shape of them doesn't seem suited to a comfortable grasp, especially if one is a bit ham-fisted from having already had a touch of the barley. As Will Smith said in Men In Black, "I feel like I'm-a break this damn thing."

Then there's jello shooters, another silly modern concept popular with the kids and one that I remain gloriously aloof to. They often employ a cheesy day-glo kind of plastic tube like this, but at least they have flat bottoms. However, I'm sure it's intended that the hipsters tip them back and empty them in one chug anyway. Many are so teensy-tiny that I don't even think they hold a true half-shot (22.1801472 milliliters).

None of these gee-gaws are any improvement over the standard tall shooter glass that I can see. Would Jesse James have been caught dead drinking from a fluorescent pink plastic coin tube at the Talbott Tavern?

I don't want to drink out of a dainty test tube like Dr. Jekyll (or Dr. Heckyll, for that matter), I want to drink out of something thick, heavy, wieldy, substantial. Like this. A good test of barware: could you kill someone with it in self defense if you had to?

And if drink from fey little cylinders we must, for a more pretentious tomorrow, consider swigging from bud vases, like they did on the original Star Trek. If it's good enough for James Tiberius Kirk, I'll consider it.

- - JSH