cheap gift bottles

I'm bottling some various batches, wine, beer, mead, graff, in some 375ml and 187ml gift bottles for the holidays. The two LHBS's near me are charging anywhere from $1.39 to $2 each for 187's and splits. Tonight I was in a local Wally World which has a pretty large Hispanic population nearby, so they have a larger than normal selection of Latino foods. They had a bunch of non-alcoholic sangria-flavor soda in really nice looking 11-1/2 oz bottles with pry-off caps. They are dark green and look like small wine bottles. Of course I can't find the price anywhere so I wander around the store until I find a laser scanner, and come to find out they are 62 cents each! I'm thinking for that price I can either drink it, give it to the kids, or just pour it out!

And while I'm off searching for a price, the nice Latino family who was behind me in the aisle made off with all but five of the bottles! Oh, well, I'm sure they will enjoy it--but I made sure I got the rest of them!

Soon as I get a chance I'll post a photo and get the brand name of the soda. My son tried one and said it was good--of course I could just pour them all into a carboy and pitch some yeast and see what happens....

Here they are-- $.62 each--

And here's the finished product--key lime wine bottled to give away for the holidays.

Very nicely done. That's the perfect bottle for a key lime wine.

Thank you. They're a great size for gift wines too. Actually they are 330ml, a little smaller than a split. If you have a gallon batch you can get 10 bottles plus a glass for the bottler, minus a little for racking

Yesterday I was chillin' at the Barnes & Noble, just browsing the beer magazines, and they had a photo of a beer bottled in this exact bottle, near as I could tell. It was capped and sealed with a red wax seal. Wish I had gotten the name--tried to find it online and couldn't locate it. I think I'll round up some more of these for some beers. Also thinking about pouring up the sangria drink inside, letting it go flat, and pitching some yeast to see what happens.

the sangria is awesome........i would love to buy about 100 of them and not look like a fool

cheesecake said:

the sangria is awesome........i would love to buy about 100 of them and not look like a fool

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It is downright tasty--still impressed by the price of these. Think I'll start buying it up for the young'uns again and saving up the bottles. I'm already starting to plan for next Christmas. I'm thinking everybody gets these bottles instead of insanely overpriced 375's from the LHBS.

I've been thinking of these for gift wines all along, but the other day I was browsing a beer mag and saw a beer in this exact bottle. It was capped with a regular cap but then covered with red wax. Very nice presentation. Since then I've been keeping an eye out and it looks like a fair number of Belgian saisons are bottled in these wine-bottle style 330ml bottles. Still hard to beat the price!

edit--just noticed I already said this a couple of posts ago...and I'm not even drinking...sorry...

Wally World???? Like the park in National Lamppons Vacation with Clark W. Griswold??

Sweeeeeet, did you get to ride the coaster or hold anyone at BB gunpoint?

Seriously, that looks great though!!!