Water bottles come in all shapes and sizes, colours, and styles, but only one kind can keep your beverage cold and delicious for hours. Insulated water bottles keep your water cold and your coffee or tea hot. In this article, we’ll give five of the best you can buy.
Before we get into the reviews, let’s go over a few of the things you should know both before and after you buy so that you can get the most for your money.
Before You Buy
With insulated bottles, however, the things to look for are the heat-keeping and cold-keeping capacities. These refer to the amount of time that a hot liquid will stay hot and a cold liquid will stay cold in your bottle – and they make a big difference.
Most insulated water bottles boast their ability to hold heat somewhere between 6 and 12 hours, and cold somewhere between 6 and 24. When looking for your perfect purchase, think about your bottle’s primary use, and how much money you want to spend for extra hours of icy refreshment.
After You Buy
First, cleaning is important! While it may be tempting to leave last night’s tea in there for the next seven days, don’t do it. Make sure to empty and rinse your bottle between uses with water, and wash between use with other liquids. Vacuum-insulated bottles aren’t dishwasher safe, so you need to wash them by hand. To wash your bottle, use a soft bottle brush with a light detergent or a mixture of baking soda and water. If there are persistent odours or tastes, soak the bottle and cap in distilled vinegar overnight.
Next, if you start to notice leaks in your bottle, don’t despair! If parts of your bottle, like the cap or gasket, start to wear out, most companies offer replacements for individual parts. Replacing these bits is easy, and can extend your bottle’s life by years. Once your bottle does finally bite the dust, make sure you dispose of it properly. Many materials, like steel and polypropylene, are recyclable and can be dropped off at recycling centres – which help reduce your personal waste and your impact on the planet.
Now let’s get down to the bottles.
Klean Kanteen Classic Insulated Bottle
Not only is this bottle classy, but it boasts an impressive 25-hour cold and 12-hour hot keeping time with its vacuum-insulated design. With a wide enough mouth to fit plenty of ice, you won’t be caught with a lukewarm beverage during any activity – and cleaning is ultra-simple.
The Klean Kanteen Classic comes in several colours and offers multiple cap styles for customization to your unique taste.
Camelbak Chute Mag Stainless Steel Insulated Bottle
The Chute Mag is a one-litre bottle made from BPA-Free Polypropylene, with a wide mouth cap that not only makes drinking easy but also helps with filling (even with adding ice). Camelbak claims that the bottle can keep liquids cold for 24 hours (longer with ice) and hot for 6 hours. The many glowing reviews online seem to reflect these claims.
The niftiest feature of this bottle, though, is the magnetic cap and handle that allows you to easily keep the cap out of the way while drinking. There’s no chance of the cap flopping into your face while you’re drinking, and you don’t have to do any work to secure it.
Larq Bottle PureVis™
I don’t know about you, but I can be pretty terrible at regularly cleaning my water bottles. I tend to wait until they start to get a bit smelly and, let’s be honest, once they start to smell it’s probably a sign you should have given them a wash long ago.
LARQ is the world’s first self-cleaning water bottle, so it’s fair to say that might go some ways to solving this problem I’ve been having. Included in the lid of every LARQ bottle is their patented UV-C LED technology. Not only does this remove up to 99.9999% of germs, bacteria and protozoa from the bottle itself, but obviously the water inside too. If you currently use a UV water purification device as part of your outdoor adventure kit, you might not need to if you’re packing a LARQ.
The UV-C LEDs automatically activate every 2 hours or can be activated manually using the button on the lid. I can’t believe nobody has ever thought of this before. There are two cleaning modes – Normal Mode is a 60-second cleaning cycle, perfect for daily use, and Adventure Mode, which goes for 3 minutes and is more ideal if you’re unsure about the quality of the water.
LARQ comes with a standard micro-USB cable for charging, which plugs into the side of the lid. A full charge will last up to a month in Normal Mode or 10-12 days in Adventure Mode.
The bottle’s double-wall vacuum insulation is said to keep your water cold for 24 hours or hot for 12 hours, but I’m yet to test these claims (I’ll update here when I do). Unlike many of the other insulated bottles in this article, the LARQ is not recommended for beverages other than water.
EcoVessel The Boulder & The Boss Trimax Insulated Water Bottles
They’re made from food grade 18/8 stainless steel, with No BPA or phthalates, and come in a range of colours. The designers have thought of everything, with a dual opening lid with the option for a wide mouth for filling and a small mouth (with silicone lip) for drinking. They even include an infuser that fits neatly inside the lid for fruit or tea infusion. The smaller bottles in this range will fit most standard cup holders.
I picture these bottles lasting years but when it is finally time to call last drinks, they’re completely recyclable.
S’well Stainless Steel Insulated Bottle
If the features of the bottle itself aren’t enough to convince you, the company’s commitment to the environment and clean water will be. Every bottle purchased through S’well sees a portion of the proceeds donated to organizations like WaterAid, Drink Up, and American Forests. Not only that, but the bottle materials are recyclable.
S’well insulated bottles are perfect for those who don’t want a lot of flash, but want their money spent on a worthy cause. These bottles come in several sizes and colours for any look.
Ecococoon ICONSPEAK Insulated Water Bottle
The Ecococoon Iconspeak Insulated Bottle is a winning combo of style, function, and price that’s designed at-home in Australia. This bottle is made from 18/8 stainless steel and BPA-free polypropylene, but it’s a step above other high-quality bottles.
Ecococoon has revolutionized drinking bottles with their signature valve cap, which eliminates mess, yanking, teeth-grabbing, and all the other frustrations of traditional drinking spouts. In addition to the ease of drinking, the Iconspeak keeps your beverages cold for 12 hours and remains condensation-free with a double walled vacuum insulation system.
Ecococoon bottles come in several designs, and the Iconspeak comes in three wide-mouth sizes for all your needs.
Thermos Tritan Insulated Bottle
Unlike the other options on this list, this bottle is made from BPA-free Eastman Tritan plastic that keeps your body safe from harmful chemicals while reducing the weight of a traditional steel bottle. The design shows both walls, offering a unique look that shows both its function and its fashion.
The Tritan comes in several laid-back colours to fit your look.
In Summary…
Disclaimer: The above links are affiliate links, meaning I will be given a percentage of all purchases. This doesn’t mean you pay anything extra and doesn’t influence the opinions I have presented in this article in any way.
Got yourself an insulated water bottle? Which model did you buy? If you have any stories, updates or corrections, please let us know by commenting below.
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You left out the oasis brand I have been using them for years and haven’t treated multiple bottles very well and have yet to have one fail on me. Keeps my water cold for well over 24 hours.
Thanks for the feedback, Jeff!
I would love to find a lightish thermos that is decently made – I have a great old school one that I will never part with, but it does weigh about 2kg. That’s why I read this post – which would be far more useful if the author had taken the time to test the manufacturer’s claims (a stopwatch and thermometer would do the job) – I really don’t see the point in just pasting the marketing spiel?
I would avoid the Klean Canteen insulated bottles – out of 3, only one still works after 6 months (they were not abused). Their manufacturing is simply not good enough as a vacuum flask should last indefinitely. Nor are their claims in a ball-park of true – in 10° you are lucky to get 2 hours of drinkably hot liquid. A large factor is the fact that the lids are not actually insulated – wrap one in a down jacket or sleeping bag and see how hot the exterior gets after just 30 minutes… Manufacturer’s claims for insulated bottles need to be taken with a LARGE dose of salt!
Hi Otter,
Thanks again for your input. This article was never meant to be an in-depth review, just a brief roundup of what’s out there, which is why Rebecca hasn’t tested the claims. You are right that manufacturers claims probably should be taken with a grain of salt. That’s true for nearly every product, though, not just insulated water bottles.
Cheers
Neil