Two professionals.
One glassware brand
made for the bar.

Gokan’s vision of the ideal glass,
realised as SIP AND GUZZLE.

Shingo Gokan, the leading bartender behind SG Group, has spent his career making cocktails. He began pursuing original glassware in 2019. The group’s nine venues in Japan and overseas had used custom glasses from the outset, giving him a clear understanding of what works in service.

Bringing that vision into physical form was glassware designer Yutaro Kimura. A fourth-generation member of a glassware company that has supplied high-quality products to leading Japanese restaurants and hotels for more than a century, Kimura drew on experience developed at a maker with an exceptional catalogue of more than 200 cocktail glasses.

We asked the two creators what they set out to achieve with their original glassware.

— What first led to the creation of SIP AND GUZZLE?

SHINGO GOKAN Our first venue, Speak Low in Shanghai, China, has a bar-tool boutique called OCHO on the ground floor. A concealed door inside the shop leads to the secret bar. When we tried to use Japanese-made glassware both in the shop and behind the bar, the prices were simply too high. At the same time, copies of products made by Yutaro’s company were being sold locally for less than one-tenth of the price—roughly one-sixteenth in the case of cocktail glasses. We could not compete with that, so I spoke to Yutaro.

YUTARO KIMURA At first I joked that perhaps I should make imitations of my own company’s products. But the conversation became an opportunity to create something genuinely new with SG Group. Shingo shared his vision, and I took responsibility for selecting the glass factory in China and developing the detailed design.

Easy for bartenders.
Striking for guests.
Stackable in service.

— What kind of glassware were you aiming to create?

GOKAN Having built my experience overseas and then returned to Japan, I wanted to pursue both usability and character from that perspective. Take the Martini glass. There are countless versions in the world, but we ultimately focused on how compelling a person should look while drinking a Martini. Who drinks one with more style than James Bond? Watch him closely and he holds the rim rather than the stem. The Martini has a strong, masculine image, yet many glasses made for it feel surprisingly delicate. We decided that was something worth designing.

GOKAN Another consideration is pairing. When a drink is served alongside food, a shorter stem creates a much better balance. It also looks noticeably stronger in photographs. And despite this fineness, the glasses can be stacked. Many venues have limited space, so being able to stack them in storage and at the wash station makes a real difference to service.

— They are easy for bartenders to use, striking for guests, reasonably priced, and allow a bar to express the character of each cocktail. Stackability adds another quality rarely found in glassware of this kind.

KIMURA Usability for bartenders was central. We aimed for enough depth to make cocktail picks easy to place, and capacity was important too. We settled around five ounces—roughly 150 ml—so a guest could enjoy a generous serve.

GOKAN After our first discussion, Yutaro kept bringing us samples. They were all strong, and the number of designs eventually reached around one hundred. The initial release represented only a small part of that work.

KIMURA Production takes place at a hand-blown glass factory in China, and the craftspeople at the factory we selected are highly skilled. Its electric melting furnace makes it possible to raise and maintain the temperature consistently, which has also improved the lustre of the glass surface. My own company makes glasses with nearly the same designs, but for this collection I redesigned them with intentional weight at the base. With production, inventory and sales in China in mind, there is little value in forcing a difficult form that leads to poor yields. Details throughout the collection were redesigned to make reliable production possible.

— Is there one glass to which you feel especially attached?

GOKAN Probably the Nick & Nora. It is not especially familiar in Japan, but in the United States it is a standard alongside the Martini glass and Coupe. It is practical, yet many versions can look awkward in a Japanese setting. I asked Yutaro to retain the virtues of the Nick & Nora while making it more elegant. Its generous capacity makes it suitable for Martini-style serves; it also suits layered cocktails made with egg white, or even a drink served slowly over a single piece of ice. Wherever the liquid line sits, the glass still looks balanced.

The best of international and Japanese glassware,
made for a new global standard.

— Looking back, how do you feel about the finished collection?

GOKAN Because we designed the glasses ourselves, they could not be better suited to the way we work. They are different from both conventional cocktail glasses used overseas and those made domestically in Japan. Our bars work at speed and our service style leans international, but using an American glass unchanged in Japan can feel wrong: the thickness, scale and form may look out of place. We arrived at something exceptionally fine yet suitably durable, with a silhouette that looks right in Japan. Even when a form seems familiar, the subtle adjustments make it different.

KIMURA My father, the company president, has long devoted himself to bar glassware, so it was an area I had not personally explored in depth before. Taking on this new challenge, I felt we achieved something very strong. The result is neither decorative nor extremely austere. It sits right at the centre of what standard glassware should be.

GOKAN Exactly. It is easy to use, yet the silhouette is distinctive enough to be recognised as SIP AND GUZZLE. We plan to expand sales into Europe. Wherever the country, I hope these glasses become standards behind bars around the world.