With the restaurant industry as crowded as it is, differentiating your establishment based on your food plating could give an extra edge against the competition. Crystal martini glasses are a versatile tool that can be used with a rectangular platter or flat round plate without a rim to wow your guests into becoming evangelical customers or at the very least repeat customers. Everyone can use some additional sources of inspiration – so without further ado here’s some restaurant menu items that should get your creative juices flowing!

What about a new take on an old classic? Rochester University, ranked one of the best universities for food, offers mashed potato “martinis” with fried chicken and barbeque sauces to students.

Photo credit: Rochester University

Use crystal martini glasses as a way of presenting individual brownie trifles to your guests as a dessert option. Full recipe for this lovely dish available at Better Homes and Gardens Magazine website.

Photo credit: Better Homes & Gardens Magazine Delish Dish Blog

LJC Restaurants in the Philippines have introduced six new appetizers to their menu, one of which is a fried breaded shrimp with creamy aioli in a crystal martini glass. Martini glasses are often used for shrimp cocktail, however this is a different take on the traditional non-breaded shrimp with marinara sauce.

Photo Credit: LJC Restaurants

What about offering a soup served in a martini glass with some warm breads as a compliment? Food Network and Celebrity Chef Giada De Laurentiis vamps up a Watermelon and Cucumber soup with a spike of Vodka! Recipe and video located here.

Photo credit: Today Show and Giada De Laurentiis

Then there’s this restaurant offer, straight out of a molecular gastronomy dinner put on by Bravo! Restaurant in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The chef served among other innovative wonders, a Smoked Salmon filet under an inverted martini glass with Cucumber Gelee, featuring lingering applewood smoke.

Photo Credit: Bradley Pines | Kalamazoo Gazette

I hope that some of these dishes stir your creative juices and start you thinking about all the innovative ways you can showcase your food using a crystal martini glass.

Crystal martini glasses are often used in high-end restaurants, golf courses and event venues to reflect and enhance the atmosphere. But if a restaurant or event venue is either opening for the first time or looking to create a more luxurious look, one of the things that is extremely important is budget. With profit margins slim and breakage costs to be factored in, operations managers, chefs and foodservice operators / owners often ask "How much do crystal martini glasses cost in Canada?"

This blog post attempts to round up the range of costs associated with purchasing crystal martini glasses so purchasers can budget appropriately.

The cost of crystal martini glasses varies tremendously depending on the look and size of glass you want. Martini glasses in Canada generally come in a 5oz – 10oz volume and are made of either lead-free crystal or lead crystal. (If you're interested in learning more about the difference between lead-free crystal and lead crystal, refer to our earlier blog post here). Price also depends on whether the glass has been hand cut, hand blown, or machine made. Machine made martini glasses allow for a more uniformed and consistent shape while hand blown crystal can have shape inconsistencies (though most are hard to tell with your naked eye). Hand blown also tends to be much more expensive because they're often blown through highly paid highly skilled craftsmen. Hand cut refers to the grooves cut in the crystal creating patterns that catch the light and eye. A crystal martini glass therefore varies in price from $2.85 wholesale up to $112.50 retail.

Shipping prices for crystal martini glasses are calculated based on the shipping cubic measurements instead of the weight – because glasses are mostly air and take up more space. You would be looking at a minimum of $1.40 per glass.

Hopefully this blog post helps with your budgeting when looking to purchase crystal martini glasses.

One of the biggest struggles when attending a cocktail reception is the awkwardness of juggling a wine glass and plate of appetizers. It pretty much means foregoing either the wine or the appetizers or the entire attendee pool clusters around the food stations and cruiser tables so they have places to set their plates or glasses. What if you could offer your customers a solution to this problem?

Enter the Cocktail Plate.

This nifty plate allows for guests to hold their crystal wine glass and appetizer plate in one hand enabling them to freely use the other hand to shake hands of newly acquainted guests or use gestures to properly illustrate their story.

One of the questions we get asked most is "How do you use a cocktail plate?"

The answer lies ahead.

Imagine you’ve just arrived at a party and after some preliminary circling have headed for the bar to imbibe in a fabulous Chardonnay.

Step 1: Pick up fabulous Chardonnay

In order to make sure you behave professionally and alcohol doesn’t cloud your judgement, you’re going to want to have something to eat. So you head to the food stations to pick up some food.

Step 2: Pick up appetizers

By now you have two hands full and none available to network with. Here’s where the cocktail plate really shines.

Step 3: Place stem of wine glass in ‘c’ indent of cocktail plate and let wine glass rest on plate

Voila! One hand free to shake hands with everyone in the room!

A note of caution: This cocktail plate really shines when you’re mixing and mingling standing up – just be careful that you remove your wine glass BEFORE placing your plate down on a table. If you forget this, you’ll have a glass of wine all over yourself, the table or both.

Your customers will love being able to rent a plate like this that helps solve a common networking problem.

Old Fashioned Glasses are one of the most used glasses in a bar or restaurant because of their versatility. While traditionally, an old fashioned glass is used to serve certain cocktails such as the Old Fashioned, because of the shape of glass it can also be used by bars or restaurants as a Scotch glass for Scotch on the rocks (or neat), other alcoholic beverages such as Rum and Coke, water glasses, and more.

With Restaurants Canada stating the average foodservice operator's pre-tax profit is just 4.2% of the entire operating ratio¹, finding glassware that not only allows operator's to utilize the same glass in different ways, but also doesn't break the budget can be a problem. We’ve looked at numerous different sources of old fashioned glasses both in crystal and glass in Canada to help you determine how much they cost so you can price your drinks accordingly.

Old Fashioned Glass Price:

The first thing you need to determine is whether you want to go with a old fashioned glass made of glass or crystal old fashioned glass. Old fashioned glasses made of glass that are approximately 10oz range in price from $2.50 - $9.99 per glass. This price range is dependent on whether they’re purchased from at wholesale or retail prices, whether they are manufactured from a brand-name and the location they are manufactured. Crystal old fashioned glasses that are approximately 10oz range in cost from $3.15 - $9.99 per glass (for a similar straight style tumbler). This price range is again dependent on wholesale or retail prices, where they are manufactured and whether a brand name manufactured them.

Shipping Costs:

With an increasingly online world, there are times when you either don’t have the time or physically can’t pick up old fashioned glasses in store resulting in free shipping. If a store pick up isn’t an option, shipping costs would range based on the quantity of glasses you are ordering. Because glass and crystal are primarily air, shipping costs are charged on the dimensions of the shipment instead of the weight. For example, 10 dozen glasses across country from our warehouse in Mississauga, ON to Vancouver, BC you’d be looking at 0.50c per glass in shipping charges.

Hopefully this blog post gives you a range required to start planning your bar menu along with what budget you can allocate to tabletop supplies.

There are tons of different types of crystal wine glasses out there. Some are stemless, some are stemmed. Some have rounded bowls and others have the classic tulip shaped bowl. But with the number of crystal wine glasses out there, it can be overwhelming to choose which crystal wine glass goes with which wine – unless the product has it in its title. We’ve decided to put together an easy reference post utilizing our own crystal wine glasses to help you easily determine the best wine to serve with each glass.

In our Serenity Crystal Wine Glasses Line:

Serenity 12oz Crystal Wine Glass

Best for white wine, it is the smallest wine glass available in our crystal stemware collection. A white wine glass should have a prominent U-shaped appearance to maintain the cooler temperatures. If you’re looking for a red wine glass that would pair nicely next to the 12oz Crystal Wine Glass, I would recommend the 16oz wine glass as it has the best scale in relation to the size of glass.

Serenity 16oz Crystal Wine Glass

This glass is a versatile glass in that it can be a red wine glass when paired with a 12oz glass for white wine or can be a white wine glass when paired with either the 19oz red wine glass or 22oz red wine glass. Because of its size the 16oz crystal wine glass would pair nicely with any of the other wine glasses in our Serenity line. Its scale works well with any of the glasses.

Serenity 19oz Crystal Wine Glass

This glass is best as a red wine glass due to the size of the bowl. It has a fuller, rounder bowl which allows the red wine to properly breathe. The complex aromas and flavour bouquet that exists in red wine requires a glass with a larger bowl to ensure the red wine contacts more air during the pour or swirl.

Serenity 22oz Crystal Wine Glass

This glass is again best as a red wine glass due to the size of the bowl which allows the wine to breathe.

In the Victoria Crystal Wine Glasses Line

Victoria 23oz Crystal Wine Glass

If used along with the Victoria 28oz wine glass, the 23oz makes sense to use as a white wine glass but works best with red wine in all honesty. If used entirely by itself I would recommend it as a red wine glass as it has that great bulb shaped bowl synonymous with luxury. It has the slight inward curve at the top of the glass to focus aromas and still a decent amount of room to swirl the wine.

Victoria 28oz Crystal Wine Glass

This wine glass is the ultimate shaped bowl for red wine. Bulbous and round, it allows substantial breathing for the wine. It has the slight inward curve at the top of the glass to focus the aromas and provides substantial room for swirling and swishing of the wine.

Hopefully this blog post gives you a useful reference point to look for when choosing the best crystal wine glasses for your event or establishment.