The ubiquitous cocktail glass, in the centuries following the inception of the drink form for which it was named, has taken on many shifting shapes, most - but not all - of which are stemmed. The stemmed glass was an obvious choice for a cold drink that contained no ice since it allowed the drinker to pick up and hold it without unduly warming the contents of the vessel. Other variations handle the same need by providing extra thick footed bases which can be held, and in at least one case, the user does pick up the stemless, baseless glass by the bowl, but this glass rests neatly in a small bowl of ice between sips. The evolution of the cocktail glass, though, was largely through refinement of the goblet - as was the classic stemmed wine glass.

The popular conical cocktail glass, though the form had seen happenstance use for other purposes previously, was introduced for its current purpose in Paris at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Industrial Arts) which was the debut of the Art Deco movement. Its use was initially in Europe during American Prohibition, only being really embraced in the States after World War II.