*40 oz. Hydro Flask Review*
By: Landwire
22 October 2014

When I am out and about on day trips, hikes, camping trips, etc... I like to drink cool/cold water. A problem that folks run into is that after a few hours, the water in their bottles is no longer cold. If a bottle was left in a car, the water can be quite warm. Your typical metal or plastic drink bottles can not keep cold water after a few hours. I started looking at insulated bottles. Hydro Flask is one that kept coming up with good reviews. I decided to give it a try. It claims it will keep your drink cold for 24 hours and hot stuff for 12 hours.

A good number of my excursions involve my family, so I opted for the larger 40oz bottle. I also elected to get a quick flip lid. The lid comes with a warning that it is not 100% leak proof. My experience says it about 95%ish. Once I got the bottle, I put it through several tests before I would risk it.

Test 1: Refrigerator
At work, we have a 5gallon water cooler that is not really cold. I filled up the Hydro Flask bottle and tasted the water. It was just slightly cool. I placed the bottle in the refrigerator for 3 hours. After 3 hours, I retrieved the bottle. The outside was quite cold. Yet the water inside was still just slightly cool like it was before I placed it inside the refrigerator. I was impressed that the water inside was still roughly the same temperature after 3 hours.

Test 2: Overnight Ice check
One night about 9PM, I filled up the bottle with ice water. I let it sit for about 10 minutes. I then poured out the water and left the ice. The next morning about 7am, I check inside. There was some water, but quite a bit of the ice was still there.

Test 3: Left in the car during the day
One morning about 6:45, I filled up the bottle with ice water before I went to work. When I got to work, about 7:30, I left the bottle on the front seat of the car. I made sure that I parked where the sun will heat up the front seat for most of the day. All of the windows were rolled up as well. At 3:00 PM I went back out to the car to check on the bottle. The outside of the bottle was quite hot. The ice had melted, but the water was quite cool.

Test 4: Hot water
One morning I filled up the bottle with hot water. I don't have the exact temperature, but I could not leave my finger in the water for more then a few seconds. 8 hours later at the end of my work day, I did a finger check. I could leave my finger in for a few seconds longer, but the water was still quite warm.

After going through the above 4 tests, I felt the bottle does indeed work as it claims. The first adventure I took it on was a 5 day camping trip to the coast. One thing that was apparent is that the bottle is big. While I knew it was big when I first got it, it wasn't till the first trip when I had problems trying to make it fit in the back pack water bottle holders. It was also a bit too big for the cup holders in the car. Even though it was kind of a hassle to carry; the capacity of it was quite nice.

The picture was taken on the coast of Ft. Bragg in Northern California. The beach was less then 1/4 of mile from our campsite. We had some several 1 gallon jugs of water that was kept in the ice chest. I used the bottle as my drinking bottle for the entire trip. I would fill it up as needed. It worked out quite well.

The next adventure was an overnight backpacking trek. I filled up the bottle with ice water just before we started driving. It took several hours to drive to the trailhead and we got there about 5:30pm. I left the bottle in the car so that I would have cold water to drink after the hike back the next day. The next day, we got back to the car about 11am; the water inside was still refreshingly cool. Including the drive time, the water was in the bottle for about 20 hours.

With the 4 test I put the bottle through, as well as the several adventures I've taken it on, I am convinced that the Hydro Flask is an excellent water bottle. Knowing what I know now, I would have originally opted for several of the smaller sizes. The bottle and the flip cap were purchased from Amazon for just under $45 including the shipping.

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