Immortalised in glass

To our knowledge, only two fictitious characters from a famous novel and a complementary series of movies, have given their names to cocktail glassware. They are Nick and Nora Charles, a former private detective and his wealthy wife, the main characters of The Thin Man, the 1934 murder mystery created by hardboiled fiction writer and celebrated American novelist, Dashiell Hammett. In the stories the couple who had a fondness for cocktails – particularly Martinis – were regularly seen serving them during Prohibition. However, their namesake glasses, the Nick & Nora, first appeared in the exclusive Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Plaza, Midtown, New York City in 1987 after a Manhattan glass designer produced a reworked version of a popular 1930s glass – known as the “Little Martini” – in which Nick and Nora Charles served the cocktail in the film. In contrast to the larger conical Martini glasses popular in the 1920s and ‘30s, the Nick & Nora was a more elegant design, having a long stem, narrow mouth and a smaller bowl capacity. Today, it takes its rightful place within the full gamut of cocktail glassware – from glasses for Highballs, to coupes and flutes to shot glasses, snifters and balloons.