Aluminum Bottles and “Downweighting”

There’s an excellent article in the Aluminum Association about the benefits of “downweighting”.

I guess “downweighting” is now part of our lexicon, just like “downsizing”.

In another Aluminum Association article, an aluminum industry executive is quoted as saying “A transition to strong, affordable and carbon-reducing aluminum already is underway, which will enable cars and trucks to get lighter – not necessarily smaller – and more fuel efficient. As both NHTSA and EPA have agreed, such a transition is a good thing both for consumers and the environment . . .”

You could substitute the terms cars and trucks in the quote with a variety of products – wine bottles, beer bottles, perfume bottles, pharmaceutical bottles, etc. – and you would get the same benefits.

In a previous post, I talked about the weight advantages of aluminum bottles vs. steel drums.

I hope companies will better understand the advantages of aluminum bottles and actively pursue downweighting their products.

New Coors Aluminum Pint Bottle

You can now get a proper pint of Coors Light.

Coors just launched its new one-pint aluminum beer bottle. That’s a full 4 oz. or 33% more than the usual 12 oz bottle.

Personally, I prefer the smaller “pony” bottle which is about 5 oz. With the regular 12 oz bottle, the beer gets warm in my hand even before I finish it. So the pony is perfect for me.

I can’t complain about the advertisement for this new 1-pint aluminum bottle though.

Check out the neat commercial below.

Aluminum Bottles vs. Steel Gallon Drums

I wanted to devote this post to our 1-gallon seamless aluminum bottle.

Industrial aluminum bottles get very little attention but they play a huge, unheralded role in the storage and transport of the materials that are at the heart of end products like perfumes, vitamins, etc.

The seamless aluminum bottle is an ideal alternative to the more widely used steel gallon drum. First of all, it is 3 times lighter than its steel counterpart so there is the immediate advantage of lower transport costs. The content weight to container weight ratios are better with aluminum bottles. It takes a lot less fuel to transport a gallon of essential oil in our seamless aluminum bottle compared to steel drums.

Handling of aluminum bottles is also easier for humans. Their lighter weight makes them easier to lift. Moreover, aluminum bottle geometries allow for much easier pouring of contents. Take a look at the flat and wide opening of the steel drum in the picture. You can empty the an aluminum bottle to the last drop more efficiently.

I’ll write a little more about the advantages of our seamless aluminum bottle in my next posts.

Coors Aluminum Bottle

Coors Aluminum Bottle

This is my second post on aluminum beer bottles in as many days.

The new “Coors Lite Iced T” is billed as a “Coors Light with a refreshing taste of iced tea”. Apparently, Coors sales have suffered more than a little from the rising popularity of wine and spirits.

So I guess they decided to try to make Coors Light a little more sophisticated by mixing it with a less “blue collar” beverage like tea. Sort of like adding a lime to beer, which is what Anheuser-Busch did with its Tequiza.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of mixing other beverages or flavors with beer. My only exception is for some flavored beers from Belgium, but I have to pay a lot more than what I’d pay for a Coors Light. Anheuser-Busch junked Tequiza because of poor sales. Hopefuly, Coors Lite Ice T will have better results.

As for the packaging, the Coors Lite Iced T aluminum bottle is a winner! Beautiful silver background with burnished gold accents, especially just below the twist-off cap.

So even if it fares no better than Tequiza, it will probably be a sought-after aluminum bottle collectible.

Sorry – it’s only available in Canada. 😦

Dorada Aluminum Bottle

Dorada Aluminum Bottle

I just had to post about some beautiful aluminum bottles, after I saw the rather ugly aluminum bottles launched by Pepsi, which I wrote about previously.

Compañía Cervecera de Canarias (Canary Island Beer Company), part of the SAB Miller Group, launched a limited edition aluminum bottles collection of 250,000 of their popular Dorada beer for the Tenerife International Carnival.

These are truly gorgeous bottles, showcasing the art of aluminum bottle decorating, and really capture the spirit of carnival.  So they don’t look like beer bottles.  So what?  The designs speak for themselves.

The three designs are shown in the photo here.  One of them – with the Dorada text in bold – is nicknamed “Yellow Submarine,” and highlights different carnival motifs.

I went thru the SABMiller website and was surprised to find what brands they own.  Of course, I knew that they owned the Miller beer company.  But I bet most people wouldn’t know that they also owned Pilsner Urquell (the Czech beer considered #1 in the world to some afficionados), Peroni (Italy) and Grolsch (Holland).

Scentsy Aluminum Bottle for Room Sprays

I’ve blogged about aluminum bottles for perfumes a couple of times.

Scentsy Aluminum Bottle

We designed a beautiful bottle for one of our customers, the French parfumeur Molinard. It’s still one of my favorite aluminum bottles.

I just came across a new aluminum bottle for a room spray. Finally! I’ve been waiting for something like this for some time now.

The folks from Scentsy, are repackaging one of their room sprays in aluminum bottles instead of the usual glass and plastic bottles we normally see. Their aluminum bottles will have a spray pump, and a crimped aluminum top to minimize leaking.

I think it’s a good move by Scentsy. Aluminum bottles should help keep light, oxygen and other environmental factors from degrading the room spray essences too quickly, far better than plastic or glass.

Aluminum Bottles for Pepsi

Here’s another batch of aluminum bottles, right on the heels of the new Diet Coke aluminum bottles launched a few weeks ago.

Aluminum Bottles Pepsi

They’re from Pepsi. And they’re ugly 😦

I guess they didn’t want to hire a fashion designer like Diane von Furstenburg or Karl Lagerfeld to design their bottles. I wrote about the new designer aluminum bottles by Diet Coke in two recent posts.

These new Pepsi aluminum bottles come in hot pink, bright yellow, and blue – not exactly colors I associate with fizzy colas. They remind me, in fact, of kitchen cleaners and medicine.

Maybe these new aluminum bottles from Pepsi are a myth? I’ve never seen them. For that matter, I think I have not seen 90% of the new aluminum bottles from Coke or Pepsi.

I really wish these aluminum bottles had wider distribution and media coverage.