It was the peak of sophistication: Curvier than a Martini glass however deeper than a coupe, the Nick & Nora was the glass of the early aughts’ nice craft cocktail renaissance. It was elegant and traditional, and on the identical time, it was new. When, in 1987, Dale DeGroff initially revived the glass for the pre-Prohibition cocktail checklist on the Rainbow Room—and christened it the “Nick & Nora,” after the murder-solving sophisticates within the 1934 movie adaptation of The Skinny Man—it was a rebel towards the V-shaped Martini glass that had come to dominate the nationwide cocktail scene.
If the V form had associations of tacky Martini bars and saccharine pseudo-Martinis, the Nick & Nora was elegant, delicate, understated. It hopped throughout Manhattan from the Rainbow Room all the way down to Pegu Membership, after which in all places else, an indication of a brand new period. Consuming was not the provenance of partiers; now it was a considering man’s pursuit. “I believe the Nick & Nora is fairly emblematic of that very severe time,” says Derek Cram, bar director for San Diego’s Puesto. And, not by coincidence, it was ideally suited to very severe drinks.
“We had been favoring plenty of stirred, boozy cocktails, as a result of they had been simply so totally different from what was being consumed on the time,” says Cram. That Nick & Noras had been additionally sensible, arduous to spill and arduous to interrupt was a part of their enchantment. Bartenders cherished them, and patrons got here to anticipate them, an elegant indicator of a well-made drink. William Elliott, bar director and managing associate at Maison Premiere in Brooklyn, New York, in truth recollects “flack from some sorts of cocktail nerds” for not utilizing Nick & Noras. (He prefers a V.)
However then—it’s troublesome to pinpoint the precise second it occurred—the Nick & Nora began a sluggish fade. “It type of disappeared, with out me really figuring out that it disappeared,” says Brian Evans, head of bars for New York’s Sunday Hospitality Group. It isn’t that they’ve vanished from the earth—Nick & Noras are nonetheless in all places, together with at a number of of Evans’ bars—however that they’ve misplaced their standing. Abe Vucekovich, beverage director at Meadowlark Hospitality in Chicago, is a passionate Nick & Nora partisan, and nonetheless, he worries: “I believe it’s perceived like previous individual’s glassware?”
It was a confluence of things. “I hate to be overly reductive and simply pin every little thing again to the pandemic,” says Evans, however, on the identical time, in fact it modified what individuals needed from their drinks. The resurgence of going out led to the frenzied resurgence of Martinis, generally in title solely—Espresso Martinis, soiled Martinis, ’tini Martinis, any Martinis—which helped redeem the fame of the much-maligned V-shaped glass. Immediately, it appeared to suit the second. It was, as Eater’s Jaya Saxena put it, “sharp and arduous and a little bit bitchy.” It was what the pattern forecaster Sean Monahan referred to as “growth growth.” And it was enjoyable. The Nick & Nora felt like a holdout from one other time.
At the least, for now. To be out of trend solely means to be positioned for a comeback, and the “dainty” V is reaching its saturation level. When it does, the Nick & Nora will probably be ready: easy and chic, as sturdy as ever.
