Planning to get outdoors this summer? Whether you’re going to be hiking, biking, swimming, canoeing, or just lounging under the sun, you’re going to need to stay hydrated, and that means keeping your drink cool and refreshing. Sure, you probably have an old foam can koozie laying around… somewhere. That’ll work, right?
What are you, some broke college student?
Toss that ratty old thing away and step up your game with a drink cooler from Puffin. Fun and stylish, Puffin drink coolers range in price from $12.95 to $21.95 and come ready to fit into your outdoor activities. Puffin drink coolers are available online and in over 4,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Canada, including every R.E.I. retail store. Plus, Puffin drink coolers work better than other drink coolers on the market today. At least that’s what the press release Puffin sent us along with a number of samples said. But do they really keep drinks cooler for longer?
During a recent recording of the Pop Goes the Culture podcast we tested that claim. We had 4 identical cans of soda cooled in the same refrigerator overnight to near-identical temperatures. One can was unprotected, another in a foam-style koozie from a major outdoors retailer, the third in a more modern neoprene koozie that can be picked up at your local super center, and the fourth in the Puffin Adventure Vest. We popped the top of each can and used an infrared thermometer to record the temperature of the surface of the soda inside each can at the beginning of the test, after 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 30 minutes of sitting on a table at room temperature. We entered the results in a spreadsheet to see whether the Puffin drink cooler actually kept the beverage cooler than the other koozies.
The temperature of the soda in the uninsulated can raised the most, as expected. That soda rose 11.8 degrees after 30 minutes, an increase of nearly 22% over its starting temperature. That old foam-style koozie wasn’t a lot better. The temperature of the soda in the can inside the foam koozie rose 10.1 degrees, an increase of a little more than 18% over its starting temperature. The neoprene koozie fared better. The soda in the can inside the neoprene cooler rose 7.1 degrees, a nearly 13% increase in temperature.
The Puffin Adventure Vest drink cooler did the best job of keeping the soda cool. After 30 minutes the soda in the can inside the Adventure Vest only rose 6.3 degrees, an increase of about 11% from its starting temperature. Not only did the Puffing drink cooler do the best job of keeping the soda cool, everyone liked the style of all the Puffin samples sent to us, including the little bitty, working pockets.
Pick up your choice of Puffin Drinkwear online or at a retail location near you before summer kicks off this Memorial Day weekend.
Disclaimer: Puffin provided samples for review purposes. Testing methodology, data collected, and opinions are our own.
