The Special Souvenir
The special souvenir that I brought to our dinner was a boot shot glass. I was fascinated with the beer boot glass in Germany. I discovered that it has been around for more than 150 years. The glasses originally was used at hunting and riding clubs. They appeared in England in the early 1800's and in the mid 1800's, the beer boots appeared in Germany as a novelty for beer drinking in public areas.
The glasses for the boot shape was originally made from mouth blown glass, but is now made from machine pressed glass. The average size of the early German boot glasses were about one liter (33 ounces). I noticed that the toe of the boot is usually elongated and there is almost always a heel on the back of the boot. Currently, sizes from one to three liters (as well as the shot glass size) are made all sold throughout Germany. I chose to present this souvenir at the dinner because I found the history of the glass boot interesting and a cultural part of German culture. Before coming to Germany, I had never heard of "Das Boot," yet I found that many of my classmates knew what it was. I thought that this represented part of German culture and provided as a fun souvenir to take home. |