Gurgle Pot

There are very few folks from the British Isles who wouldn't recognize a glug jug when they saw one. Many households have one (Queen Elizabeth has at least two), and it's not uncommon to give it as a housewarming or wedding gift.

A glug jug, which had its origins in Devonshire, England, is designed to make a glug-glug noise when you pour from it. Here's how it works: When you tip the pitcher to pour liquid out, air gets trapped in the fish's tail. Then when you turn the pitcher upright again, the air escapes out of the tail and comes up through the liquid in the pitcher, causing a loud gurgle, or glug-glug noise.

I actually owned one back in the day, although I knew it as a Gurgling Cod pitcher. The Gurgling Cod was designed by (and is still sold by) a famous jewelry and china store in Boston called Shreve, Crump & Low.

Sadly, somewhere along the line I lost track of the gurgling cod. This is why I was happy to run across the Gurgle Pot. The Gurgle Pot comes in 12 colors and has a nice sleek design. The pot itself is extremely sturdy. It holds a little over a quart of liquid and would make a great lemonade or iced tea pitcher. It's $40 from Gurgle Pot.

Fun bottle openers

For years I've had one of those old-fashioned bottle openers mounted on the wall of my kitchen. You know the kind: cast-aluminum with Coca-Cola in raised letters on it. When I was a kid it was the type that the downtown grocery store always had next to the giant, red Coca-Cola-branded cooler where they kept all the cold sodas. There's nothing like the convenience of a wall-mounted bottle opener, because you don't have to figure out where the last person who used it decided to put it down.

You can still get the old-fashioned cast-aluminum openers—with the logo of any beer, soda, or sports team you happen to favor. But here's a collection of out-of-the-ordinary openers.

1 This cast-iron gentleman is Mr. Top Hat. $13 from farmhouse wares.

2 The Roaring Lion opener is made of cold-cast resin (a very strong polymer) with a metallic finish. It's $30 from Things 2 Die 4

3 A cast-iron moose opener would look very cool on the wall; I might be tempted to get it even though at least one customer found that the moose's chin wasn't long enough to actually open a bottle. It's $19 from Orvis.

4 Yeah, this cast-iron guy is obviously determined to open your bottle. The Bulldog opener is $12.95 from Rejuvenation.

5 OK, this is my favorite. This hardened stainless steel Bottle Bunny is from a British company called Slam Designs. It's $14.50 from amazon.

6 And then there's really nothing wrong with the classic shape. This model is stainless steel and proclaims no particular allegiance, except to helping you open a bottle of Moxie. It's $10 from Homebrewers Outpost.

Penguins at the bar

Who doesn't love a penguin? Funny little guys waddling around in their tuxedos. It's so tempting to see them as humanesque, making it a real disconnect when their facial expressions never change. Wouldn't you like to see a penguin smile? (Oooh, wait, that might be creepy.)

But I digress.

Penguins have a great shape, and the designer of the above cocktail shaker clearly thought so too ($17 at Amazon).

After you shake it all up, pour that concoction into one of these glasses sporting an image of a gentoo penguin ($18 from Cafe Press). Had to look up the gentoo. It's a little unclear where their name comes from, though it's been suggested that it derives from a word meaning nice or gentle. I like that. Let's stick with it.

To keep this theme going, how about a Penguin seltzer maker? It's about $200, but if you drink a lot of seltzer, you'll end up getting your investment back in fairly short order. And the reusable glass bottles that come with the seltzer maker are really cool looking. (On a side note, this guy could also be one of the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal.)

Last but not least is penguin ice cubes. This particular mold makes a big block of ice with two little penguin bodies riding on top—like an ice floe floating in your drink. The penguin mold comes with a companion mold with 2 polar bears on it. Last I checked the link, you could get them at houzz for $17.
(Or for a mold that makes multiple penguin cubes, read my post about them here.)

Vacu Vin Party People

Here's an interesting spin on the wine charm: little characters that stick to your glass with a suction cup. The Party People from Vacu Vin come in a set of 12, each with a different shape, color, and name. This would be a good way to really annoy your guests by assigning them one of these characters, whose names (personalities) include Deep, Cuddly, Devilish, Honest, Sneaky and Macho.

You can buy the set of 12 characters for $9 from Vital Wares.

I picked the two whose looks I liked best and it turns out that I'm both Mysterious and Naughty. I'll take that.

Like a hamster habitat for liquids

Seriously, what's not to love here, especially if you're drinking a Scorpion with a friend? Actually, especially if you're sharing a second Scorpion with a friend. Or to put a more responsible and parental spin on this, what better way to get your kids to drink milk?

This DIY Drinking Strawz kit comes with 44 components that you can configure however you choose. This gives you the option of creating a branch off the main straw so that two people can share a drink—though I'm having a little trouble grasping the physics of that, but maybe you take turns sucking.

In the kit are twelve 5-inch pieces, twelve 3-inch pieces, and 20 flexible connectors, all for $10 from Think Geek. If you want to create a giant masterpiece straw, you get a break for buying more than one kit: $19 for two, $25 for three.

Cool Bottles

These thermal carafes were designed by an award-winning Danish designer named Ole Palsby. They are called Cool Bottles, which they are indeed. They have a frosted translucent body and a vacuum glass center, hold 750 milliliters (a little over 3 cups) and come in five colors.

$32 (per carafe) from Alfi (a website that specializes in thermal pitchers and bottles, or in their words the "home of hot & cold").

Shatterproof wineglasses

I don't consider myself a wine snob by any stretch, but I do think that the experience of drinking wine is diminished if you drink it out of a cafeteria coffee mug, let's say, or a Dixie cup. It's always nicer out of a thin-rimmed wineglass.

So now let's put this together with going on a picnic or sitting by a swimming a pool. Not always practical to use nice stemware. That's why I like these stemless wineglasses from govino.

OK, they're plastic, but here's what I like about them:

• they have a very delicate feel in the hand and the rim is exceptionally thin
• the plastic is specially formulated to let you see the wine's color if you're into that
• there's a little thumb indent that adds to the design but also lets you swirl the wine in the glass (yes)
• they will not shatter if you drop them--big bonus if you're sitting on a stone patio
• they are reusable, though the makers recommend hand-washing to preserve the crystal-clear nature of the "glass"
• they do NOT contain bisphenol-A
• they are recyclable

The 16-ounce glasses cost about $3 each and come in packs ranging from 4 to 72. You can buy them directly from govino, or you can check out their list of online and offline retailers.

P.S. The Cooper-Hewitt museum thinks they're pretty cool looking, too. They carry them in their museum store.

Wine charms

I have no long-winded (or even short-winded) explanation for why I like these wine charms. I just do.

The beaded charms, which wrap around the stem of the glass, come in a set of six for $12 from ChefTools. If you have more than 5 friends, you can buy a second set of Stylish Stems with darker colored beads.

Champagne glasses

And one more thing you might need for Valentine's Day...a pair of champagne glasses. But not just any champagne glasses. All of those shown here are double-walled, which means they keep the champagne colder longer.

1 Beginning with the most modestly priced glass, this Manhattan 6-ounce champagne glass from Bodum costs $5.40 from Green Beanery. The glass would also make a really nice parfait dish.
2 Stepping up to a more sophisticated look, these squarish handmade glasses by Welmade are $32 for a set of two from Urban Living.
3 And finally, the luxury model. These designer InsideOut glasses come in a set of two for $60 from Charles and Marie.

Vertical ice cube tray

I wonder what inspired the person to invent this very clever vertical ice cube tray. It's such an odd (but practical) idea. Here's how it works: You fill the lower container, which has the actual ice cube shapes in it, with some water. Then when you insert the inner container, it forces the water into the cubes. Then you put the whole thing in the freezer.

Here is what the designers of the IceORB say in its favor:

1) There's no way you can spill water when you put this in the freezer.
2) The ice is covered so it doesn't absorb odors in the freezer.
3) Once frozen, you can use the rig as a wine chiller or as a way to keep dips or ice cream cold.
4) Once you've made a batch of cubes (it makes 21), you can put them into the inner container to keep them frozen while you make the next batch of cubes.

Check the fusionsbrands website for a video that shows how it works.

Save Our Earth glasses

There are plenty of companies out there making objects out of recycled materials, but I just happened to like these glasses better than most.

Made in Wisconsin from recycled Bordeaux bottles, the glasses have been etched with the phrase "Protect Our Earth" in four languages: English, Spanish, Afrikaans and French.

A set of four 11-ounce glasses is $45 from Uncommon Goods.

Is your wineglass half empty or half full?

I'm not a big fan of the stemless wineglass. So many of them look like water glasses that your mother bought on sale at Big Bob's Bargain Bin. However, I would make an exception for the Pallino glass, which is an Italian bistro-style glass, not a wineglass that's lost its stem. It's 4-1/2 inches high and holds 6 ounces. And the neat part is that that there is a line drawn at the halfway mark with the word "ottimista" above the line and "pessimista" below. You can get a set of 6 for $27 at Sur la Table.