The Best Drinking Glass

After considering 50 options, we think the Bormioli Rocco Rock Bar tumbler is the best all-purpose drinking glass. It’s durable, lightweight, and available in a variety of sizes, and in our tests it repeatedly survived counter-height drops onto a marble floor. The classic bistro styling of the Bormioli glass pairs nicely with almost any dinnerware, making it suitable for all occasions.

A good drinking glasses set is like a good outfit: comfortable, well made, stylish yet understated, and able to transition from day to night—breakfast to cocktails—with ease. The best ones can pull together a dinner table and still withstand the bumps and drops of daily use.

This 16-ounce plastic tumbler gives the appearance of glass and is a great option if you frequently entertain outdoors or have young kids in the house. Its tall, narrow shape makes it most appropriate for water and cocktails.

This inexpensive, non-tempered glass is tall and narrow, so it’s best suited for cocktails and water. The IKEA Godis stacks well, but its height takes up more space in a cupboard than our other picks.

We love the look and feel of the classic French bistro-style Duralex Picardie glass. This tempered glass is slightly heavier than our main pick, and occasionally sticks together when stacked, but its shape is more refined.

The tempered IKEA 365+ glasses are affordable, durable, and simply designed. In our drop tests they fared almost as well as glasses costing five times as much.

The reasonably priced Bormioli Rocco Rock Bar glass is extremely durable and stacks well without sticking. It has a bistro style similar to our upgrade pick, the Duralex Picardie glass, but it costs about half the price.

The lightweight Bormioli Rocco Rock Bar drinking glass was the most durable glass we tested. It’s made from tempered glass (a type of heat-treated glass that’s stronger and more resistant to breakage caused by extreme temperature changes than regular soda-lime glass) so it can be used for both hot and cold beverages. Several of our testers liked the 12.5-ounce size of this glass, saying it would be appropriate for a variety of beverages, including water, juice, iced coffee, beer, and wine. But you can find it in a bunch of other sizes too. The Rock Bar glass has a thicker lip than our upgrade pick, the Duralex Picardie, but still stacks neatly without sticking.

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For those looking to spend under $2 per glass, we recommend the IKEA 365+ tumbler. Like our main pick, the 365+ tumbler is made of tempered glass and was able to survive repeated 3-foot drops onto a marble floor. Its simple, casual design pairs nicely with many styles of dinnerware, and its tapered shape makes it easy to hold and stack. The 365+ tumbler is sold as a set of six glasses and is available in 10 and 15 ounces.

We recommend the pricey Duralex Picardie glass for those seeking a more elegant drinking glass for everyday use. The gently contoured shape of the Picardie glass makes it a pleasure to hold, and the slight flare of the lip provided the best drinking experience of any glass we tested. Made in France of tempered glass, the Picardie was durable enough to sustain 3-foot drops onto a marble floor. The Picardie glass is slightly heavier than our top pick, and occasionally sticks together when stacked, but it’s usually available in a wider range of sizes, from 3 to 17 ounces, and comes in a few alternate color options like blue, amber, and grey, or a set of six 8-ounce glasses in a mix of colors.

The IKEA Godis glass is taller and narrower than our other glass picks, which makes it a great shape for both water and cocktails. It looks similar to a collins glass, only wider and slightly tapered so it’s stackable (when two 14-ounce glasses are stacked they measure about 8¾ inches tall). Because it’s not tempered, the Godis glass should not be used for hot beverages, and it’s not as durable as our other picks. It survived a 3-foot drop onto a hardwood floor, but not onto a marble floor. It costs less than a dollar per glass, so if one bites the dust you won’t be heartbroken. The IKEA Godis is sold in a set of six glasses and comes in two sizes: 8 and 14 ounces.

We recommend the US Acrylic Classic Water Tumbler for outdoor use, or (in the smaller sizes) if you have young kids in your family. Our testers were impressed by how much this tumbler looks like regular glass and in our tests it didn’t fade or crack in the dishwasher after more than 20 wash and dry cycles. Because it’s wider than a typical collins glass, it’s suitable for both water and cocktails. The US Acrylic glasses stack well, but because they’re so tall they take up more space than our other picks. We also found they're a little prone to getting stuck. The glasses are sold in sets of six and are available in multiple sizes: 9, 12, 16, and 24 ounces.