The Dinner Party Dilemma
My wife and I were invited to a dinner party with good friends and as usual — as if I would mind — I was tasked with bringing the beer and wine. Now, the question in my mind was how to travel with the bottles and keep them cold while not ruining the presentation with the labels becoming wet and shriveled from the melting ice. I could wrap them in plastic wrap, but there must be a better method, but what? Then the idea came to me like a gift from the bottle gods.
The perfect plan would be something shaped to hold a wine bottle and waterproof. Perfect, I already have that and my suitcase is still unpacked from recent travels — Wine Safeguard Reusable Bottle Protectors. I keep these In my suitcase as standard travel gear. Whenever I travel I almost always carry beer with me and am often I'm bringing some home. I found these on Amazon a few years ago to solve the beer-travel issue and quickly purchased a two pack. I quickly discovered that two is not enough and I now have six.
OTHER BOTTLE PROTECTORS
Here are some other bottle protectors worth your attention. Be sure to get those that are reusable with the ziplock seal and velcro.
The Plan Worked Perfectly
I slipped the bottles into the protectors, sealed them using the ziplock tops and stored them on ice in our cooler. The bottles arrived cool and protected. Actually, this works so well that the next week I used this system again to carry three 750 mL bottles to a colleagues retirement party. This time I had better documented my process.
The Bottles
Three 750 ml bottles ready for packaging
The Bags
The Safeguard Reusable Bottle Protectors with see-through windows, built-in bubble wrap protection with leakproof ends and velcro tabs
Bottles Ready
Bottle labels through the protector windows
The Cooler
The bottles secured inside the protectors, sealed and iced, ready for transport to the event
Conclusion
I've used these bottle bags for many trips without an incident. I did have one cage and cork bottle leak once but the bag did its job very well and no liquid escaped. I feel better than rolling them up in jeans. A friend was telling me about his interest in bringing wine back from an upcoming trip to Europe. I loaned him a few of these bags and now he too is a practicing bottle traveler. Now that I've discovered that they not only can keep liquid from escaping into my suitcase but also from allowing liquid — melted ice — into the bag and ruining the labels, I keep them handy and ready at a moments notice.
