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The Anti-Gift Guide: Corkcicle's Cigar Glass

By Genevieve Burgess | Miscellaneous | November 15, 2017 |

By Genevieve Burgess | Miscellaneous | November 15, 2017 |


Because I love entering contests for free trips, I get a lot of emails from various stores, services, and newsletters that are not generally aimed at me personally. You sponsored a contest that included round-trip airfare and a hotel somewhere cool? I am probably on your mailing list and cheerfully delete your emails regularly. However, sometimes I get an email that catches my eye. One of those was from Corkcicle, and it was for their Cigar Glass. It is a rocks glass made with a semi-circular “shelf” for a cigar on the side. This looks like certain disaster to me, but maybe I was being too hard on the glass, Corkcicle makes a decent product generally. They even made Oprah’s Favorite Things this year with their tumblers! So I did the next logical thing: I bought one with the intention of mocking it on the internet for your entertainment. To be totally fair, this glass does have a very satisfying weight to it and seems like a great glass that just has a really unfortunate divot in the side. I have no complaints with the craftsmanship, only with the concept. And to test this concept I have some Maker’s Mark bourbon and the finest cigar that one can buy for less than $5 at Walgreens. Don’t worry, I’m not actually lighting it. The post-it end is the “lit” end.

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The first thing that strikes me is that even if I don’t move this from its spot, I’m going to end up with ash on my desk. Even sitting completely still, the glass is still clearly inferior to glass with a separate ash tray. Neat. Moving on to attempting to drink.

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Anyway I hold this I feel like I’m really close to catching my hair or shirt on fire, or spilling ash all over myself and somehow in my drink. And if I don’t steady the cigar with my fingers?

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I end up with a lit cigar in my lap. So, again, resting the cigar on the ashtray is the better way to handle this situation. The box itself does have a warning that reads: “Never have lit end of cigar facing toward you when using Cigar Glass for risk of burning your face. Failure to follow these instructions may result in injury and/or embarrassment.” I’ll remind you that this is a product intended to let people drink alcohol, something which is known for improving judgement and situational awareness.

Some of you may be looking at the drink thinking I’ve over-iced my bourbon. I did. I was deliberately trying to force condensation to see if it would ruin the cigar. To the credit of the glass, it’s thick enough that even after all the ice had mostly melted, there was not significant condensation that would dampen a cigar. Point to the Cigar Glass here. Still, overall I somehow feel better with a glass that doesn’t try to hold my cigar for me. It looks a little more awkward, but I feel more aware of the cigar and more in control of where it is in relation to my face. Even my tiny delicate lady hands can hold a tumbler and a cigar at the same time!

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In an effort to salvage my $20 I spend on this, I started brain storming other uses for the Cigar Glass’s divot. According to someone with much larger hands than me, it can serve as a nice grip spot if you happen to enjoy making exuberant hand gestures while drinking. But you can definitely sit other things on the shelf that you might need at hand on a night out. For the ladies, there’s always lipstick:

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But men can also store chapstick in there. After all, drinking and smoking will dry your lips out:

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Maybe it can become a snack shelf for things like cheese sticks:

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But perhaps my favorite alternative use for this glass is as a milk and cookies glass for a very specific type of cookie. Pepperidge Farm’s Pirouette cookie.

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No fire, maybe some crumbs, all delicious.