Friday Favorite Flea Find: November 21, 2025
This mid-century Hazel Atlas cocktail shaker, found at the Long Beach Flea Market, still brings style, history, and a touch of Tiki flair decades later.
Some flea-market finds come and go, but a few end up riding shotgun throughout entire chapters of your life. This mid-century Hazel Atlas cocktail shaker is one of those for me. I picked it up at the Long Beach Flea Market back in 2004, and it’s been along for the ride ever since, enduring jaunts from California to Wyoming and back again, up to Oregon, and finally home to Texas 20 years later.
A little research back then confirmed what my intuition told me when I spotted it. Hazel Atlas made some wonderfully graphic barware in the 1950s and ’60s, and this shaker with its bold red silhouettes and 12 classic cocktail recipes was a perfect match for the teak bar tool set I’d found just the week before at my local Salvation Army.
Today, it sits on my Tiki bar cart, more for looks than use. Despite its obvious ability to withstand a good shaking, it rarely sees actual cocktail duty. For that, nothing beats the old two-tin shaker method, the kind that chills a drink so thoroughly that even the ice crystals grow their own ice crystals. Still, this Hazel Atlas gem earns its keep with style, nostalgia, and mid-century charm.
You may also like:
