Comment by bryanmgreen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bryanmgreen | Hacker News Reader

Hand-blown titanium crystal glassware for whisk(e)y and spirits.

Produced in Europe by a glass factory that has been operating since the late 1700's.

PG's mantra "do things that don't scale" has been a great inspiration.

I wanted something comparable to high-end wine stemware and it shockingly did not exist, so I designed it during COVID. This is my first physical goods venture and my goodness, it comes with a lot of challenges (as an American I've intimately learned the difficulties of Brexit, for example) but I wouldn't change anything for the world. It's so satisfying to see people use a shining piece of glassware made by real human craftsmen.

The speed at which the glassware been welcomed in the community is overwhelming (both emotionally and from a pure business logistics perspective) and I couldn't be more grateful. Now, just 18 months post-launch, it's used in distilleries ranging from Scotland to Jamaica and Michelin starred restaurants.

For the HN friends, use the code HACKER for 10% off glassware :)

https://www.bennuaine.com/

"Lots of good advice simply doesn't scale." —Paul.Graham

I definitely think "Made by Humans" will become an increasingly-popular product highlight.

Beautiful effort. Wish I still served alcohol =D

For sure! Obviously it's good if some things are made by machines (like things that requirement super-fine tolerances), but the movement towards "Made by Humans" is trending away from "hipster" or "nerd" into general appreciation and that's very cool. Even if it's just for "for the marketing", the end result is that someone is getting paid for job with tangible results.

I particularly like it with the glassware because machines literally can't make this glass at its current quality; it HAS to be done by hand to have this level of refinement.

Cheers. Nice to see something whiskey related that isn’t trying so hard to communicate the usual whiskey stereotypes.

It's something I battle against every day.

I'm constantly told that whisky shouldn't be served in a stemmed glass. Honestly, I think half of my job is education.

The masculinity of the marketing message towards spirits is deeply embedded in American culture, which is why big tumblers are commonplace even though they don't do spirits justice. You don't see those stigmas in wine. The community is definitely way more gender friendly now though which is great. If my glassware can play even the tiniest part in making spirits more accessible, I'd consider this business a success.

Are glencairns not common in the states? Whilst most pubs in the UK would serve me a whisky in a short tumbler style glass, I would be disappointed if a decent scotch bar did not at least offer me a choice.

In bars with decent brown spirits programs they probably use them, but no they're not anywhere near as common as they are in Europe.

I've also never seen them in Michelin-level restaurants here because the quality of the glass isn't up to that standard.

Fascinating. It’s like a cross between a Teku glass and a white wine glass. Gorgeous.

Thanks! I like seeing how many folks know about the Teku beer glass. Very different use case, but the shape philosophy is similar.

With Bennuaine it was really about fine-tuning the dimensions through a ton of research and prototyping to reduce ethanol burn while at the same time highlighting finer notes.

Hello. These look great. But a few things that I'd like: 1) The glass does not specify a volume. 2) I'd love a wine-glass, highball and old fashioned style as well.\ 3) The Whisky & Spirits Tumbler does say 'lead free crystal' but doesn't specify it's titanium glassware. Is that correct? Cheers!

Hello! 1) Full volume is about 6oz 2) Noted! 3) Correct, the tumbler skips the titanium because it's our more affordable product and it's less needed because the product does not have a stem.

What's the brittleness like compared to glass? Is it more/less shatter resistant than other crystals?

Crystal is stronger than standard glass which is why it can be so thin.

Modern production of lead-free crystal is generally pretty good now. Old leaded crystal is extremely brittle and prone to chipping and fractures which definitely soured people's perception of its durability. Our glassware uses titanium as a strengthening additive which really helps durability as well as sparkle.

Most of our hospitality partners use them in service every day in commercial dishwashers with very little breakage. Having a shorter stem also greatly reduces both tipping and twisting scenarios which are the most common sources of breakage.

How do you mix the Titanium into the crystal, and does it bond in some way, or how does it strengthen and improve the durability?

Crystal consists of many raw materials with silicon dioxide making up the majority of the mix (70+%). Titanium dioxide is melted in with everything in a brand-new solar powdered furnace that runs up 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit iirc.

Titanium has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal which is why it's used in the most demanding applications like rockets.

Each glass manufacturer uses their own recipe and pretty much all of them use aluminum, rather than titanium, as their strengthening additive simply because it's exponentially cheaper.

Glass is normally made with 50-75% silicon dioxide (sand, basically) and the remainder various metallic salts or oxides like lead oxide, soda, potash, etc. These are combined as powders and when you melt them down they all dissolve together into glass.

From a layman's perspective all these metallic compounds seem really different from glass but in reality that's the magic of glass. I'm no chemist but SiO2 doesn't seem chemically very different from PbO or TiO2.

Neat! Ordered a pair. I especially love the dishwasher safety and lead-free elements

Love it! Thank you!

Usability was very important in development. The crystal is dishwasher friendly and as is the design itself (I wanted them to be able to fit in the top-racks of consumer dishwashers as most wine glasses are too tall.)

These look great. I went to order a pair of the tumblers, but the hacker discount code didn't work:

> HACKER discount code isn’t valid for the items in your cart

Ah, should have been more clear. The code is just for the stems.

The new tumblers are 33% off (automatically) though since they're on a pre-order special right now!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com