Tag: drinking cups

Price Points: Reusable coffee cups

Selection of reusable coffee cups | H is for Home

The proliferation of plastic waste has been in the news a lot recently. The ever-expanding Great Pacific garbage patch is really alarming. At last, more is being done nationally and by the government to curb the use of plastic products. It began with the halt to giving away free plastic bags at the supermarket checkout. Recently, Iceland has been the first major supermarket to pledge to not use plastic on their own brand goods. Lets hope all the others soon follow suit.

Earlier this year, a call for a 25p ‘latté levy’ on disposable cups hit the headlines. Some coffee shops have long been offering a discount to customers who bring their own reusable coffee cups. Currently, very few people take up the offer. The hope is that the tax will increase that number in the same way as the charge on plastic bags.

Here are three of our favourite reusable coffee cups – much more attractive and easier to handle than the flimsy, throwaway ones passed over the counter by the barista.

We can all do our little bit to lessen the impact of plastic on the environment. Take reusable bags when we go shopping, buy loose goods where possible, recycle household waste

  1. Waitrose blue floral scatter coffee cup: £2, Waitrose
  2. Ecoffee cup William Morris Cornockle (400ml): £8.99, Planet Organic
  3. Bodum vacuum travel mug with cork band, 350ml: £20, John Lewis

Price Points: Moscow Mule mugs

Moscow Mule mugs

Moscow Mule – it sounds so Cold War Soviet Union. In fact, the cocktail was invented in the early 1940s by two American drinks distributors.

On 28 July 1948, it was reported in the New York Herald Tribune:

“The mule was born in Manhattan but ‘stalled’ on the West Coast for the duration. The birthplace of ‘Little Moscow’ was in New York’s Chatham Hotel. That was back in 1941 when the first carload of Jack Morgan’s Cock ‘n’ Bull ginger beer was railing over the plains to give New Yorkers a happy surprise. Here was ginger beer in crockery bottles tasting exactly like that of old England.”

“Three friends were in the Chatham bar, one John A. Morgan, known as Jack, president of Cock ‘n’ Bull Products and owner of the Hollywood Cock ‘n’ Bull Restaurant; one was John G. Martin, president of G. F. Heublein Brothers, Inc. of Hartford, Conn., and the third was Rudolph Kunett, president of the Pierre Smirnoff, Heublein’s vodka division. As Jack Morgan tells it, ‘We three were quaffing a slug, nibbling an hors d’oeuvre and shoving toward inventive genius.’ Martin and Kunett had their minds on their vodka and wondered what would happen if a two-ounce shot joined with Morgan’s ginger beer and the squeeze of a lime. Ice was ordered, limes procured, mugs ushered in and the concoction put together. Cups were raised, the men counted five and down went the first taste. It was good. It lifted the spirit to adventure. Four or five later the mixture was christened the Moscow Mule… and for a number of obvious reasons. “

The exact reason why Moscow Mules are traditionally drunk out of copper mugs is a bit lost in time. However, the material certainly suits this cocktail – the metal keeps the drink colder for longer, necessitating less ice. And it apparently makes the acidic lime taste sharper.

I’d happily quaff Moscow Mules from any of three of the mug collections above. But I’d choose the hammered version over the other two. Firstly, I like my mugs with a handle – there are no freezing (or burning, if glugging Glühwein) fingers to contend with. Additionally, I know it goes against what I’ve just said, but the hammered body is so tactile…

  1. Copper Moscow Mule mugs (set of 4): $63, Food52
  2. Set of 6 pure hammered copper Moscow Mule mugs: £83.25, Amazon
  3. Tom Dixon Plum Moscow Mule glasses, set of 2: £55, John Lewis