Ancient Greek Mastos cup, ca. 500 BCE
In October of 2008, my wife finished chemotherapy for Breast Cancer. She was diagnosed in April and started radiation therapy in June, finishing the Friday before the October Race for the Cure in Omaha. She was determined to walk the one-mile route to poke her finger in cancer’s eye, and I decided that if she could walk the mile, I could run my first 5K. She was spent from the last treatment but determined to do it – starting a tradition of walking with her parents (her mother joining her as a breast cancer survivor in 2013) and our kids. I would run the 5K through the finish line, and into the later-starting crowd for the 1 mile walk, catching up and finishing with them. There was no event this year due to COVID, but October will always be a remainder of that shitty year, and how far we have come. So, it only seems fitting that we explore the bosom and the coupe glass in October – so hopefully every time you drink a cocktail out of the classic glass, you remember to get – or remind a loved on to get – a mammogram.
There is a great legend that the modern coupe glass was modeled after Queen Marie Antionette’s breast. King Louis XVI of France gifted his young wife a set of porcelain serving ware that included a ‘jatte-teton’, a breast-shaped cup based on antiquity. The ancient Greeks loved to adorn their pottery with the naked human form, both male and female, and created the Mastos cup based on the older Skyphos cup. The Mastos deleted the base of the Skyphos, presumably so the contents needed to be emptied before the cup could be set down, and reformed it into a breast-like shape, including a pronounced nipple.
It was this cup that Louis modeled his gift after, which sat in a cradle. It deleted the handles and kept the nipple at the bottom. To drink from it, one had to cradle the breast and sip from it returning it to its base once done. This was a time that the breast was considered to have supernatural powers – but not the same powers that we give it today. Rich and poor drank from it – enabling a defenseless infant to transition to a little human and eventually a warrior or even a king. This was also the era where there was a change in thinking about breastmilk, and that rather than relying on wet nurses, a mother should feed her own child. Even a Queen.
Unfortunately, this story (well, just the coupe glass part) has been completely debunked, as the glass was created in England 100 years before Marie was born, specifically for the purpose of drinking sparkling wine. King Louis did model his gift after the Greek relic – but did not invent the modern day coupe glass. But the relationship between the coupe glass and a woman’s breast lives on. And honestly, knowing men as I do – it seems unlikely that it DIDN’T have some relationship. In 2008 Dom Perignon released a couple glass inspired by Claudia Schiffer’s breast, and in 2014 supermodel Kate Moss had a mold of her left breast taken and it was formed into a glass used at London’s 43 restaurant. They join Madam du Pompadour, Madam du Barry, Empress Josephine (Napoleon’s wife), Diane de Poitiers, Helen of Troy, and photographer Lee Miller in having coupe glasses inspired by their . . . bosoms.
The coupe glass (pronounced Koop) has been around since the 1600s and was created for drinking champagne. Sparkling wine was brand new at the time and was the result of an accident by the French. They had no interest in it, as they considered it inferior wine due to an accidental secondary fermentation, producing the bubbles. The English however, loved the bubbly stuff. The wealthy – the only ones who could afford it – drank it to excess. Around the same time, the method of heating and cooking began to shift from wood to coal – hotter and requiring a better type of glass to contain the hot liquids. But the new glass, containing lead, was difficult and expensive to replicate into the tall goblets that were used, so the height was greatly reduced – roughly the shape we see today, although smaller than contemporary coupes. Sparkling wine was far less bubbly and much sweeter than contemporary champagne, and the drinker was to ‘shoot’ the liquid, rather than sip it.
Fast forward to the late 1800s and champagne began to change significantly. The French had been toying with the process to get a more consistent result, and like vermouths and gins of the era, the drink became drier – and bubblier. The coupe glass tended to lose its bubbles rather quickly and the drink become flat. Enter the champagne flute, with its tall slender shape, allowing the bubbles to travel to the top from a very small base. The coupe glass had a second life in cocktails in the 21st century, but as they faded out, the coupe glass too, faded from memory by the 60s. Its 400 year run as the premier champagne glass was mostly over by the 1950’s. Some champagne snobs still think the coupe glass is the correct stemware to drink from, but by the 1980’s they had all but disappeared.
But thanks to the cocktail renaissance that has been happening for the last 15 years, the coupe glass has been saved once again. It may not be the best vessel for a bubbly champagne, but it is far superior to the martini glass for serving a cocktail. It allows the nose to reach the surface, taking in all the aromatics of the drink, and is much easier to contain the liquid. The martini glass was built to spill – as I’m sure everyone knows. The coupe glass, and its cousin the Nick and Nora glass, are the perfect vessels of the current craft cocktail movement.
So, avoid the martini glass. Use the flute for champagne. And appreciate the rich history of the coupe glass.
And schedule your mammogram. Or remind your sister, daughter, mother, or friend to get their yearly exam.
Cheers!
AotCB-013
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- Bill Stott
