The Best Drinkware Sets for Hosting

If you buy one drinkware set for hosting, buy the Libbey wine glasses in a set of twelve. Restaurant-grade soda-lime glass, dishwasher safe, and twelve is the count that stops you washing glasses in the middle of your own party. Add JoyJolt stemless for everyday use and you have covered most of what a house actually needs.

The four glasses that cover a party

Why one big mixed set is usually the wrong buy

The appeal of a 24-piece mixed drinkware set is obvious: one purchase, one box, done. The problem is that the manufacturer decided the ratio, and the ratio they chose is whatever makes the box look generous — typically equal numbers of every shape.

Your real ratio is nothing like that. Most households go through wine glasses and all-purpose tumblers constantly and reach for a martini glass twice a year. Buy two focused sets instead and you spend the same money on the glasses you will actually hand to people.

The two-tier approach

The single most useful idea in this category is to stop looking for one set that does everything and run two tiers instead.

• Tier one, small and good: four to six genuinely nice stems for your own table and for small dinners. This is where a thin rim and a proper bowl shape are worth paying for. Schott Zwiesel Tritan is the pick because it is lead-free crystal that survives a dishwasher, which is an unusual combination.
• Tier two, large and replaceable: eight to twelve restaurant-grade glasses you hand out without thinking. Libbey builds exactly this. When one goes, you replace one.

The mistake is buying twelve expensive glasses, because you then wince every time someone puts one down hard — and hosting badly to protect glassware is a poor trade.

Stemmed or stemless for the main set

Stemless wins on storage, on dishwasher loading and on breakage, and loses on the two things stems exist for: keeping a hand off the bowl so white wine stays cold, and looking formal. If you are buying one main set and most of your hosting is casual, stemless is the pragmatic choice. If you serve white and sparkling wine regularly, go stemmed.

Our stemless roundup and everyday wine glass picks go deeper on each, and how many wine glasses you need settles the quantity question properly.

What a drinkware set does not need to include

Three shapes turn up in mixed sets and almost never get used in a home. Knowing to ignore them is worth more than any pick on this page, because it is where the piece count goes.

• Sherry and liqueur glasses. A set of six tiny stems that come out, at most, at Christmas. A small wine glass does the same job.
• Shaped beer glassware. Pilsner flutes, weizen vases and tulip glasses are a real thing in a bar and a storage problem in a cupboard. One decent all-purpose glass covers beer at home.
• Matching water goblets. Stemmed water glasses are a formal-table convention that most people drop within a month, because an ordinary tumbler is easier to wash and harder to knock over.

Cut those three and the cupboard holds what you actually pour into, in the quantities you actually need. That is the whole argument for buying by shape rather than by box.

Which sets to buy

• Best overall hosting set: Libbey wine glasses, in twelve.
• Best everyday set: JoyJolt Spirits stemless.
• Best cocktail set: Libbey Vina, martini and coupe.
• Best upgrade for four: Schott Zwiesel Tritan.
• Best outdoor set: Bravario shatterproof.