It was the peak of sophistication: Curvier than a Martini glass however deeper than a coupe, the Nick & Nora was the glass of the early aughts’ nice craft cocktail renaissance. It was elegant and traditional, and on the identical time, it was new. When, in 1987, Dale DeGroff initially revived the glass for the pre-Prohibition cocktail listing on the Rainbow Room—and christened it the “Nick & Nora,” after the murder-solving sophisticates within the 1934 movie adaptation of The Skinny Man—it was a insurrection in opposition to the V-shaped Martini glass that had come to dominate the nationwide cocktail scene. 

If the V form had associations of tacky Martini bars and saccharine pseudo-Martinis, the Nick & Nora was elegant, delicate, understated. It hopped throughout Manhattan from the Rainbow Room right down to Pegu Membership, after which all over the place else, an indication of a brand new period. Consuming was now not the provenance of partiers; now it was a considering man’s pursuit. “I feel the Nick & Nora is fairly emblematic of that very critical time,” says Derek Cram, bar director for San Diego’s Puesto. And, not by coincidence, it was ideally suited to very critical drinks. 

“We had been favoring plenty of stirred, boozy cocktails, as a result of they had been simply so totally different from what was being consumed on the time,” says Cram. That Nick & Noras had been additionally sensible, exhausting to spill and exhausting to interrupt was a part of their attraction. Bartenders beloved them, and patrons got here to anticipate them, an elegant indicator of a well-made drink. William Elliott, bar director and managing associate at Maison Premiere in Brooklyn, New York, in reality recollects “flack from some sorts of cocktail nerds” for not utilizing Nick & Noras. (He prefers a V.)

However then—it’s troublesome to pinpoint the precise second it occurred—the Nick & Nora began a gradual fade. “It sort of disappeared, with out me really figuring out that it disappeared,” says Brian Evans, head of bars for New York’s Sunday Hospitality Group. It isn’t that they’ve vanished from the earth—Nick & Noras are nonetheless all over the place, together with at a number of of Evans’ bars—however that they’ve misplaced their standing. Abe Vucekovich, beverage director at Meadowlark Hospitality in Chicago, is a passionate Nick & Nora partisan, and nonetheless, he worries: “I feel it’s perceived like outdated individual’s glassware?”

It was a confluence of things. “I hate to be overly reductive and simply pin every little thing again to the pandemic,” says Evans, however, on the identical time, after all it modified what folks wished from their drinks. The resurgence of going out led to the frenzied resurgence of Martinis, generally in identify solely—Espresso Martinis, soiled Martinis, ’tini Martinis, any Martinis—which helped redeem the fame of the much-maligned V-shaped glass. Out of the blue, it appeared to suit the second. It was, as Eater’s Jaya Saxena put it, “sharp and exhausting and a bit of bitchy.” It was what the development forecaster Sean Monahan known as “growth growth.” And it was enjoyable. The Nick & Nora felt like a holdout from one other time.

No less than, for now. To be out of style solely means to be positioned for a comeback, and the “dainty” V is reaching its saturation level. When it does, the Nick & Nora will likely be ready: easy and chic, as sturdy as ever.