Glass Shapes Can Make Us Drink Too Much

Roland Piquepaille writes "Some people think that a glass is half empty while others see it as half full. But one thing is sure: some glasses are fuller than others. According to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), researchers from Cornell University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have shown that short glasses are more likely to lead to over-indulgence. In fact, people pour 20-30 percent more alcohol into short, wide glasses than into tall, narrow ones of the same volume. The researchers obtained similar results with students and professional bartenders. So, as New Year's Eve is coming, remember to use only tall glasses for your party!!!"

Comments

It all depends!

[MikeFM]

Use short glasses when someone else is buying the liquor, tall when you are.

Re:It all depends!

[MarkusQ]

Use short glasses when someone else is buying the liquor, tall when you are.

Use short for your date, tall for you.

--MarkusQ

P.S, To my wife (who also reads /.): I'm just kidding of course. I never did that. Especially since I met you.

Huh?

[Animus Howard]

Shouldn't that be "use only short glasses"? It's New Year's Eve, after all.

Why the hell...

[psykocrime]

Do you mean by "drink too much??"

Re:Why the hell...

[drinkypoo]

I believe you know you've had too much to drink when you can no longer distinguish the difference between the words "Why" and "What".

Excellent advice

[nizo]

I have found that after switching to this glass not only do I typically only fill it half full, I rarely even finish it all.

Glass shapes?

[andreMA]

Silly me. I thought it was the alcoholism.

At the bottom

[quokkapox]

The shape of the glass is irrelevant.

You'll never find the answer at the bottom.

My observation

[mister_llah]

People who drink out of bottle shaped glasses tend to drink more than even those who use short glasses!

Further Study

[gbulmash]

They reported this on NPR last night ("All Things Considered") and tested two Washington DC bartenders who turned out to be pretty accurate. One was spot on, the other went against the study and actually filled the tall glass a smidge more.

The real trick to this is the "four pour". With a certain standardized spout that they attach to bottles in most bars, you start pouring, count to four, and you're pretty close to the 1.5 ounce mark. This is what's taught in most bartending schools, and if the bartenders stick with it instead of trying to eyball the amount, they get it right much more often.

- Greg

Re:Further Study

[soliptic]

The real trick to this is the "four pour". With a certain standardized spout that they attach to bottles in most bars, you start pouring, count to four, and you're pretty close to the 1.5 ounce mark

I'm confused.

Don't you have "optics" in the USA?

Over here, the amount of alcohol you get isn't at the whim of the bartender. Spirit bottles are hung with optics which are of a standardised size (usually 35ml, IIRC, but it can vary -- regardless, the volume used in a particular establishment must be clearly advertised on a notice somewhere near the bar). The barman/barmaid simply pushes the glass against the optic; it discharges until it's empty; they remove the glass, now containing a standard measure; the optic refills ready for the next shot.

Relying on the bar staff to count to four sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. How fast do you count? If I'm paying a given, standard amount of money for a shot, I want to know I'm getting my money's worth, not a smaller volume! Of course, this means you can't get a larger volume, too, but hey...

Georgia Tech

[metlin]

Heh, given the lack of women here at Georiga Tech, it is no wonder that the only possible research is in analyzing alchohol and alchohol glasses.

The only other possible research alternative would have been to analyze network cable lengths, but then you get into cliched-joke territory.

Funny anecdote - a graduate student here asked a prof for a good hangout, and he recommended a place right across our research lab. Dude took his girlfriend there, only to realize that it's a strip club. Hilarity ensued. And of course, the same prof usually offered free beer and pizza if you came to his saturday meetings.

Now you know why they do research into alchohol glasses here at Tech.

After extenshive testing...

[Anonymous Coward]

After extenshive testing I haff determined that the shshshort glasshes are the besht for extenshive testing porpuses.
Now where the hell did I put my pants?

Faversham, Mr. Domo.

Myth

[winkydink]

http://www.snopes.com/toxins/water.htm

Re:Myth

[syukton]

So use Google as a proxy:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www .snopes.com/toxins/water.htm&langpair=en|en

See the langpair=en|en bit? Translate from English...to English! I read about this trick on digg a few days ago.

And some glass shapes

[3waygeek]

keep us from drinking anything at all.

Martini glasses

[pthisis]

One of my friends has taken to ordering Jack Daniels, chilled, in a martini glass. Most bars charge you for one shot but pour at least two--even bartenders who can pour a good 4-count will pour it, take a look, think it looks empty, and double it.

Glass half full?

[strstrep]

Some people say the glass is half full, others say the glass is half empty, but engineers say that the glass has a factor of safety of 2.

Re:Warning

[Tango42]

In the UK all pint glasses (and other sized glasses) that alcohol is served in are engraved with the size and an official coat of arms - it's illegal to use any non-standard glasses.

Interesting but not too surprising

[Hellasboy]

I don't remember where I heard this from; textbook, professor, teacher.

But a neat thing you can do is have two equal volumes of water in two different types of glasses and present it to a pre-preschool, preschool, or kindergarten aged child (memory is a little hazy on the age). Fill one short wide glass and one tall narrow glass with equal volumes of water in front of the child and the child will tell you that the taller, narrower glass has more water than the short, fat glass. Yes, they will tell you that it is fuller even though they see the same amount of water go into each glass.

I can't exactly recall which part of the brain develops during this age (24-40 months) at the moment, but it's a neat thing to see (if you're a science geek).

As how this might relate to the topic... maybe this doesn't fully develop (or develop as much) in some people because of diet, genetics, or a combination of both?

Re:Interesting but not too surprising

[jpmkm]

We spent a few days talking about this in my cognitive psych class last semester. It's called conservation, and Piaget did quite a few experiments very similar to what you described when he was working out his stages of development. The preoperational(~3-7 years old) stage is when children have difficulty realizing that the volume of liquid is actually the same. Concrete operational(~7-11 years old) is when children start developing the skills for thinking logically about stuff(such as the conservation of liquid), and can realize that the volume of liquid is indeed the same. It's really a bit odd at first to see a group of children at one age say that one glass has more water than the other, and another group of children a year or two older realize they have the same amount.

Damn. I never thought I would use anything from that class.

Re:Warning

[Krach42]

which should be about 1 hour and 3 hours before midnight.

I think you need to lay off the alcohol already...

Try this one....

[imsabbel]

http://www.kleinbottle.com/

There it could be a bit problematic to say weather its half full or empty, topologically :)

Yeah, who knew?

[CarpetShark]

Yep. Personally, I drink too fast, even with tea. With alcohol, in a bar, it's worse, because I get bored in bars and don't really get into the conversations others are having. Let's face it: bars aren't exactly the most stimulating environment for guys who like science and technology and sci-fi. OK, theres an oldish fantasy element to some bars, but that fades fast :) Basically, it's about self-control, and social periphery. If you don't want to get drunk, and you drink to fast, then try orange juice.

Re:Warning

[RollingThunder]

In Canada, there's a unit under Industry Canada called Measurement Canada.

http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/inmc-mc.ns f/en/Home

If they say it's a pint, it has to be a pint. You can report a bar to this group and they will investigate, and cite if necessary (not listed on their site but was stated by a representative of theirs on a CBC Radio One show, I believe Quirks and Quarks).