According to their website, “Hydro Flask® began with a challenge: to create a reusable water bottle that truly performs in any environment.” This is no mean feat, but Hydro Flask creators Travis Rosbach and Cindy Morse were fed up with reusable beverage bottles that failed on every level. Sounds like my kind of people!

The BPA-free, lightweight, durable, sweat-proof, freeze-proof, recyclable, and lifetime-warrantied Hydro Flask came together after over a year of work. They’re 18/8 double-walled stainless steel wrapped in a non-tox food grade coating (in Orange Zest in the case of the standard mouth tester they so graciously sent). The stainless is food grade, too—think double walls the thickness of eating utensils. It’s highly resistant to absorbing odor, taste, and bacteria.

But the secret isn’t just the materials: it’s what’s between them—nothing. It might be hard to be proud of “nothing” (a vacuum), but don’t tell that to Hydro Flask—they count their vacuum technology as the feature that separates them from the rest of the pack, since this is all they do. In their own words, they’re pretty dang good at it.

So that’s the construction side: how do they work in the real world? First, the feel—I really love the way the Hydro Flask feels in my hand. The Orange Zest bottle I got to test has a wonderful coating that’s grippy but easy to clean. It’s a great size, with enough ounces to sate your thirst on an outing or for drinking during the day (21 oz).

A word on durability: not to knock our beloved CamelBak, but I have two of their insulated stainless bottles. Particularly the bases are dented and scratched and dinged. Now, our test sampling with the Hydro Flask is considerably shorter than my CamelBak insulated ownership, but so far it seems to handle the dangers of daily life better than the CamelBak.

The 21 oz Standard Mouth bottle I tested retails for about $26. There are many cheaper bottles, say at Target, but none of them will be of this quality—keeping hot stuff hot 12 hours (verified with a  hot mocha) and cold stuff cold for 24 hours (my ice may have melted, but my water stays cold in this thing). So I’ll admit it: I’m now a believer. Hydro Flask has indeed created a reusable water bottle that truly performs in any environment. Mission accomplished!