CHEERS

I have just been reading a book all about the history of glass decanters by Andy McConnell. Fantastically illustrated and gives a great insight into the use of decanters in social circles. I have only made a few but appreciate their importance related to how we drink. Which brings me to what do you pour the contents of your decanter into? Of course, it can only be drinking glasses and I have made many of differing designs. Most common I suppose were called port pipes.

I first was introduced to port pipes about thirty years ago when a customer brought in a ceramic shaped vessel with a sawn neck where one sucked the liquid through. I made a few and a few more, mainly for drinking red wine or brandy. For the last few years I have been making then for whisky drinkers. In the middle of the pandemic I made a few port pipes based around the design of the Coronavirus which found favour within the NHS for some reason.

I believe that drinking glasses work best when clear glass is used for not only can you see what you are drinking but if something is sealed inside then you can easily view it through the sides of the glass. Thus when I sealed a glass shark inside a wine glass it was fun watching it emerge when red wine was drunk. One of my favourite designs saw me fuse a small glass man inside the bowl of a wine glass which I shaped like a mountain. The issue was that the mountaineer wanted to climb the mountain but got confused and ended up climbing a valley (the bowl).

Basically I see wines glasses in three sections. Bowl, stem and foot. Any one of these sections can be manipulated to alter the whole appearance of the glassware. One of my entries to an exhibition involved my deconstruction of a wine glass where I fused the stem on the side of the bowl and foot also on the bowl then fused scissors onto the stem. I was convinced the stem would crack being heated too much to allow the glass flow over the metal of the scissors. But no all stayed intact although as it was sold, I have no idea where or what state it is in now.

Recently I have been making glasses slightly distorted to fir around drinkers noses. This especially is useful for nosing whisky as minimum vapours escape. Instead of engraving patterns on the sides I write using small diameter glass rod melted with a flame and layered on and around the glass.

Drinking form glasses made of glass can be dangerous but only due to the design and not related to the material. I once made a wine glass with glass thorns and glass barbed wired around the rim. Yes you could fill the glass but would probably cut your lip as you tried to sip from the glass.

I enjoy making Viking related glassware and worked on some Viking glass goblets a few years ago for an exhibition. The bowl was shaped as an inverted Viking helmet complete with horns. Although this was easier to drink from than the glass with barbed wire it still gave the user a shock when one of the glass horns went up a nostril. Ouch!

Size is vital no matter what anyone says and I have been commissioned to make a few carafes that hold 750ml which is the amount found in the average wine bottle. The risk here is the larger the diameter of the carafe the thinner the wall thickness can be. Not always true as the glass can be thickened up.

Finally looking back at decanters then I have made miniature versions for dolls houses. The decanters had to have air tight stoppers which involved grinding the stopper and decanter together. Very fiddly when the height of the decanter is 30mm!