The most beautiful. The most spirit. The most popular. While these might sound like senior high school superlative awards, the focus is actually on drinkware. From wine glasses to water goblets, coffee mugs to copper sippers and more, there is a vessel for every drinkable occasion.
The Most Beautiful
In Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Kactus Jock, a life-sized statue of a man sporting a mustache and a giant sombrero offers a thumbs up to guests while they peruse a nearby display of Mexican glassware.
“If it’s not a souvenir type of a cup or glass, then we have really great success with our Mexican glassware that is handmade, hand painted, and it’s actually a really good seller,” notes Store Manager Yolanda Williams.
The rainbow-colored water glasses, swirl-colored wine goblets, martini glasses, margarita glasses, pitchers, and shot glasses are hand delivered by a man who drives back and forth from Mexico to display his talents among the store’s mix of postcards, T-shirts, sweatshirts, branding irons, signs, blazing sun wall art, spicy peanuts, hot sauces, cowboy hats, jewelry, pottery, hats, keychains, magnets, cactus plants, and other souvenirs.
It’s also no mistake that the display around the glassware pays homage to Mexico’s proximity with a red apron adorned with the phrase “Hot Mama” in a fiery-looking font surrounded by chili peppers. Williams points out it’s all part of the effort to add dimension and tell a story about the merchandise.
“You have to go with the motif that you are trying to accent, like the Mexican glassware. I’m not going to put something Scandinavian around it or display it on a Scandinavian table,” she explains.
Amid a backdrop of terra cotta floors, wood beams, and earth tones reminiscent of the area’s desert surroundings, the store also boasts an assortment of coffee mugs, sippy cups, insulated thermoses, highball glasses and shot glasses, most of which are unique to the shop and the image they seek to portray.
“In our store, we try to purchase things that other stores in the area are not going to carry,” Williams points out. “So we try to find vendors that have unique things that we could have maybe exclusively in our store.”
In addition to the Mexican glassware, Williams says silicone cups are proving to be a sought-after item that are becoming an up-and-coming trend.
“Silicone cups are huge. We even can’t keep them on the shelf,” she notes. “We just cannot keep them in stock.”
The Most Spirit
While Fiesta ware and silicone are the name of the game in Arizona, the color of choice in Butte, Montana, is copper. But, as Butte Stuff store owner Cheryl Ackerman notes, there’s no rhyme or reason to what people are attracted to — so long as it bears the signature copper color.
Kactus Jock Store Manager Yolanda Williams says it’s important to tell a story with displays to add dimension to merchandise.
“It’s a variety. In the copper, it’s just [a matter of] what people are looking for. They want pebbles, they want smooth. We have pinstripe, we have paisley. It’s just what catches their eye because it’s all unique,” she says. “And it’s all solid copper so you can make your Moscow mules in it.”
But it’s not just the color that attracts visitors to the array of pint glasses, wine glasses, flute glasses, shot glasses, mugs, steins, water bottles, straws, ice buckets and pitchers. Ackerman notes copper is a flagship product of the area — one that has meaning for the mining town.
“Butte is known for copper. We have one of the biggest copper mines here in the United States,” she asserts. She notes that the copper at one time was smelted in Butte, but due to EPA regulations, the copper mined in Butte is sent overseas for smelting then sent back to be crafted into copper products.
And since the roots run deep in the tight-knit community, so do the sayings from the stories multiple generations who grew up on listening to men tell their tales of their days underground. The most popular phrases adorn many of the coffee mugs, pilsner glasses, pint glasses, wine glasses, travel mugs, and shot glasses in the 2,500-square-foot gift shop Ackerman owns with her daughter, Krystal Carlson.
“We sell so many products that have ‘Tap ‘er light’ on it,” Ackerman says with an airy sigh. The phrase immediately transitions her into a dutiful storyteller herself, devoted to getting all the details just right and passing along the history of her beloved home.
“When the men mined underground, they would take great big drills and drill into the sides of the tunnels and their partner would take great, big sticks of dynamite … and they would tap it into this hole that they drilled into the side of the tunnel,” she explains. “And they would say, ‘tap ’er light.’ So then the miners would end their shifts saying, ‘tap ’er light, take care, be careful, be safe.’ And it’s just a Butte saying.”
The store sells the saying on everything from mugs to hats, to clothing. “It’s a Butte greeting. Somebody will leave and they’ll say, ‘tap ’er light,’ [meaning] take care, be easy.”
Another mining slogan, “How’s she go” also is used quite a bit on products, Ackerman says.
She explains that when miners would start their shifts, they would ask the guys getting off shift, “how’s she going,” or “how’s she go?” “And, they were asking how the mind performed that day,” she says. “And if it was a good day, the guys getting off would say, ‘she go good.’ And if it wasn’t a good day, they’d say, ‘I need a boilermaker, a shot and a beer’ because it wasn’t a good day.”
Butte Stuff store does its own sublimation printing at the 10-year-old gift shop so it’s able to make replica images of the mines where generations of men earned a living for their families. Among the most coveted are souvenirs with one of the 14 iconic headframes that still dot the skyline that served as the mineshaft openings where men and their equipment were lowered into the earth.
Coffee mugs, sippy cups, water bottles, thermoses and shot glasses rank among the top sellers at Kactus Jock.
“With all the tourism and when people come home, they’re our big sellers because they may have had a grandfather or a father that worked in one of those mine and they want a coffee mug that has the mine on it that their family worked in,” Ackerman notes. “So those are really unique.”
The Most Popular
Just steps away from the Atlantic Ocean in Bar Harbor, Maine, a two-story periwinkle blue and pink clapboard-sided house beckons visitors to gather with friends in its pub, long known for encouraging guests to “Meet me at Geddy’s.”
While patrons tip a glass, toast shots with friends or sip from a highball, the gift shop — known as Geddy’s Down Under — sells the most coffee mugs. Even the lobster breaking out of the building’s exterior gives a subtle nod to the most popular drink souvenir in the gift shop, as it holds a mug labeled “cappuccino” in its pinchers.
“It seems like no one can ever have enough coffee mugs,” says Geddy’s owner Heather Davis with a laugh. “It’s just such a simple gift item that is useful.”
She adds that “whimsical” shot glasses with a 3-D moose or lobster also seem to attract attention “because people think they’re funny” and because they are iconic images for the area. For the same reason, visitors love to buy shot glasses with the phrase, “Bah Habah,” which is like slang for Bar Harbor that the “R-dropping” New Englanders are known for.
“It seems like no one can ever have enough coffee mugs. It’s just such a simple gift item that is useful.” — Heather Davis, Geddy’s
“People tend to like the accent in Maine. A lot of times we drop the ‘R’ in Maine, of course,” Davis notes. “So it’s something in our area that’s different than maybe somewhere else.”
While sayings and motifs may change depending on locale, Davis says the basics in the rules for displaying drinkware never change.
“I think the big thing … that you really have to keep up with is making sure that the glassware is shiny,” she stresses. “No one’s going to want to buy a pint glass that looks dirty. It needs to look clean and presentable and not dusty inside.”
Another rule of thumb — making sure the shelf is full all the time.
“So when people buy two things you immediately go to the closet and you fill that,” she explains. “Or make sure that it looks full by [rearranging] to make sure there’s no empty space.”
Geddy’s Down Under in Bar Harbor, Maine, finds success in selling coffee mugs adorned with lobsters and seaside connections.
Davis says a mirror accentuates the shelf where the drinkware is kept, which is another labor-intensive prop to keep dust-free, but it’s worth the effort and “adds a little something to the display.”
Such simple rules to follow that make all the difference.
And at The Vermont Spot Country Store in Quechee, Vermont, simplicity is the mantra for the color scheme of the coffee mugs — hands down the most popular drinkware at the gift shop, says Store Owner Chris Goodwin.
“The one-color screens on a dark-colored mug, that’s been a standard item forever. Now, I’ve been selling souvenirs for probably 25 years and that has really not changed,” Goodwin notes. “The simpler the design, the quicker the connection it makes with the customer.”
Stoneware or pottery-looking mugs are among some of the most popular, Goodwin says. He adds that pint glasses are a close second for the shop in drinkware, which makes up about 30 percent of sales in the 2,000-square-foot store.
“We wrap a lot of mugs in tissue paper, I know that, when we check people out,” he says with a laugh. “We just have a lot of mugs.”
And to convey the sheer volume of mugs they carry, Goodwin once again relies on simplicity. Three eight-foot shelves spanning five feet high display more than 30 designs that range from campfires to animals to covered bridges to pine trees.
“Putting mugs all over your store in 12 different places, I don’t think that’s a good strategy,” Goodwin explains. “I think you rack it out and let everybody know. So when people see our mugs, I guarantee they say we’ve got the most mugs in a display in the state.”
He estimates the strategy allows them to display about 200 mugs at once — something that convinces customers to join in supporting the most popular drinkware item in most gift shops.
“Put together a display that says, ‘Hey, if you’re going to buy a mug, you’re going to find it here,” he stresses. “And you know, most of the time you’re going to sell through it no matter what. It’s just matters how quick. But give it some real estate and make a statement with it.”
When it comes to drinkware, shop owners agree that trends may come and go, but mugs are here to stay. Help customers remember your location with every sip of their morning Joe with a selection of drinkware that speaks to what makes your destination unique.
