> Hello.
>
> My brother, a wonderful but hard-to-buy-for bartender, has put out
> his christmas list. One item is: "champagne flutes, preferably the
> old slipper-style".
>
> What on earth??? Is this professional jargon? Can anyone describe
> and/or provide a retailer?
there was a decent chunk of time (no time to look it up at present) where it
was fashionable to serve champagne in "glass slippers"
if i recall it comes from the folk tradition of drinking out of a shoe at a
wedding, and was marketed as a wedding item.... there's one on ebay at
present
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3162687500&category=2726
i've never actually held one, but from what i understand they're up there with
champagne roses (or boquets, think baseless champagne flutes) in terms of nice
for a toast and throughily useless to actually drink more than a little from.
nice collectors item though. if you're shopping for me too, i'm partial to
old shakers ;)