Best Highball and Collins Glasses for Home

Libbey has made glass in Toledo, Ohio, since the nineteenth century, and a great many restaurant tables in the country carry its work. The Classic Highball is its plainest tall glass: 11 ounces, straight-sided, just under 6 inches tall and 2.5 inches across, lead-free and dishwasher safe.

There is nothing clever about it, and that is the case for it. It suits water, iced tea and a gin and tonic equally, it looks right on any table and a broken one is no cause for grief. For a household with children or a large party, it is the sensible set.

Skip it if you notice the thickness of a rim. It is ordinary soda-lime glass, sturdier than it is fine.

The catch. A thicker rim than crystal, and soda-lime glass can cloud after years of hard dishwasher water.

Luigi Bormioli is an Italian glassmaker from Parma, and its Top Class highball is the most refined glass to drink from at this price. It is made of the company's SON.hyx lead-free crystal, with a laser-cut rim that is thin at the lip and reinforced against chipping. It holds 11.75 ounces.

The shape is slightly shorter and wider than the Paris, closer to a classic highball than a Collins, and the glasses stack. That matters in an apartment kitchen, where tall glasses take up more shelf height than anything else.

Skip it if you want a weighty glass. It is light in the hand, which some people read as less substantial.

The catch. Stacked glasses can wedge together if put away damp; dry them first.

Nude is a crystal brand from the same Turkish glass group as Paşabahçe, and it is sold on Amazon by Paşabahçe USA. The Hemingway highball is 10.5 ounces, about 6 inches tall and 3 inches across, in lead-free crystal with a linear pattern pressed into the wall. The lines give the glass an optical shimmer when it is full of ice and soda.

The pattern also helps with grip when the glass is cold and wet, and it hides fingerprints better than a plain wall. It is a good choice for a bar cart or for a household that wants its tall glasses to look like something.

Skip it if you prefer a plain glass that goes with everything. At 10.5 ounces it is also the smallest glass here, a proper highball rather than a Collins.

The catch. Sold in fours rather than sixes, so a full set costs more than it first appears.

Schott Zwiesel's Distil collection is cut glass in patterns named after Scottish places, and the Kirkwall is the most restrained of them. The Collins glass holds 11.1 ounces and stands 6.1 inches tall, 2.4 inches across, the tall, slim shape the drink calls for.

It is made in Germany of Tritan, the maker's lead-free crystal of titanium and zirconium oxide, which it describes as resistant to breakage, chipping, scratching and thermal shock. Schott Zwiesel says the glasses are completely dishwasher safe and will not etch, cloud or discolor for the life of the glass. That is rare for cut glass, which traditionally has to be washed by hand.

Skip it if you want a fine, thin rim. Cut glass is heavier by nature than a plain glass of the same size, and the pattern is a matter of taste that a plain set never asks of you.

The catch. About three times the price of the plain Paris glass for the same size and material; you are paying for the cutting.