Glasses with Class: Martini Glasses

Everyone wants to drink in style at home - especially now most of us can't afford to go out somewhere classy as often as we could - but so many of us lack the basic glassware needed for a beginner's cocktail cabinet.

We think it will be too expensive, or we don't have time to shop around, but here at Vinspire we take classy tipple-drinking very seriously indeed so we've put the legwork in. We know some people are looking for budget "who cares if we break them whilst tipsy?" glasses, whereas others are looking to splash out on some glassware with more pizzazz, so we've found both some brilliant basics and some more statement pieces.

This week it's the turn of the martini glass.

Obviously an essential for anyone who loves any of the most famous cocktails out there - sidecars, cosmopolitans, gimlets, martinis (obvz) etc, a good martini glass can be surprisingly hard to find.

As Basic As It Gets

Without resorting to stealing them from a cocktail bar (we've tried, they just get really angry with you) probably the most basic set you can get comes from Matalan: a set of four martini glasses is only a fiver. They're not as wide as conventional ones but they sure are pretty, and for that price I could smash one every day.

If you have a little more dosh to splash but still want to keep it classic, you can also pick up four martini glasses for £12 from John Lewis.

A Step Up

If you'd prefer your colour to pop a bit more, we think you'll be tempted by the Pied a Terre martini glasses for £20 for four at House of Fraser.

Personally, we like a bit of colour but we don't want to block out the pretty cocktail itself, so we're going for the lovely purple-stem martini glasses for £5 each from Debenhams.

Something Special

Staying with the coloured-glass theme, we love the LSA martini glasses for £27 per set of four from Dotmaison - they even come in a lovely box.

For something more daring, Nordstrom sell some delicious tortoise-shell martini glasses for just under £60 for four (that's including shipping to the UK and taxes) - not cheap, but we can't quite take our eyes off them.

John Lewis come up trumps again - they have the ever-popular jazz martini glass four-set for £40.50, which is much cheaper than their competitors. Hooray!

Lastly, handmade is always best and we are head over heels for the hand-painted lace flower martini glasses from Toasted Glass on Etsy.

While you spend ages making your mind up, we'll start on our top champagne saucers...