My "Every Day Carry" bag, a Maxpedition Jumbo Versipack S-type, has a nice spacious bottle holder on the side. I always used to carry some small plastic bottles with various drinks in there: Cola, Aloe-vera drinks, fruit drinks and sometimes even a bottle of water. This worked perfectly, but it was a bit costly.
Sure, a bottle of water costs "only" € 0,25 or so, but a bottle of Aloe-vera drink is € 1,- to € 1,50 (depending on where you buy them). It doesn't take a whole lot of time or effort to empty one of those 0.5L bottles, and the stuff is usually loaded with sugars. It was time for a change of pace. I was looking for a water bottle, but something decent... something that will last a long time, has a decent size and won't "adopt" flavor from the liquids inside.
After a bit of browsing and comparing, I read about Klean Kanteen. They are a USA-based company that manufactures 100% stainless steel water bottles in an environmentally-friendly way. Regardless of my opinion on the whole "sustainability" mumbo-jumbo, their bottles fit my criteria perfectly. I went online to see if there was maybe a dealer in The Netherlands, which there was; good news! So after browsing their selection of bottles a little bit, I decided to go for the 40 fluid ounce, or 1182ml "wide mouth" bottle, which arrived today.
Now then, it is by no means a cheap (€ 29,95) or small ( about 23.5cm tall and 9cm wide) water bottle; but it is a very, very nice bottle. It fits the bottle holder of my bag perfectly, and because the bag is so dark and the bottle is stainless steel; it keeps the beverage inside nice and cool. It holds 1182ml, which is more than plenty to get through the day, and because it is made of stainless steel, it won't adopt any flavors from the contents. Also, because it is stainless steel and has no coatings or whatever on the inside, you could technically speaking use the bottle as a cooking pot as well; but I don't plan on using it for that.
So what do I use it for then ? Well... one of my goals for 2012 is losing a bit of weight (Yes, I know... it sounds very cliché ), so I will be drinking less Cola, fruit drinks and other drinks that hold a lot of sugar. I will be drinking a lot of water and sugar-free beverages. One beverage in particular seems very interesting, and that is Bolero.
Bolero makes sugar-free, low-calorie instant drink mixes in 22 different flavors. A packet of instant drink mix costs € 0,35 at the local Asian supermarket , and combined with some plain tap water it will fill that 1182ml bottle with a very cheap and tasty beverage; which is very suitable for dieting too, because it has only 176kcal for the whole 1182ml. I've tested the apple, white-grape and almond ones, and they were absolutely delicious; so I will definitely be drinking more of them in the future.