What was a seemingly simple task, has turned out to be our biggest obstacle to date.  Finding the perfect bottle to compliment our lovely beverage has been challenging to say the least.  Being a start-up, our packaging knowledge was pretty limited, so we did what any other start-up would do, and dove in head first.  

Within a few minutes we found the "perfect" bottle.  We got to work right away creating a label that highlighted the simple clean lines that the bottle had to offer.  Things were really taking off.  We had our bottles all lined out and the labels were looking great.  We submitted the artwork to a few print shops for some quotes, and we kicked back and waited for the quotes to trickle in. Well not really, there was still some fine tuning to do, and some bottle measurements to take, but all in all we were making great progress. Thanks to the help of Danny Bobbe over at Cut Pak Co. these details were ironed out in a jiffy.  

Our next step was to get some content for our blog, so during one of our routine tastings we decided to carbonate, and bottle our drinks for a product shoot.  We were almost finished with the photoshoot when suddenly one of our bottles exploded.  We were blown away...haha.  This made us a bit concerned.  The last thing we want is for the bottle to explode on you. I can see it now, you're driving on your way to work or the gym on a sunny day, and before you take the first sip of your soon to be favorite beverage it explodes all over you and your car. Talk about a day ruining experience. Logically, we called up the bottle manufacturer and started asking some questions.  Turns out that these beautiful bottles, that we had poured so much love into, weren't all they were cracked up to be.  The type of glass wasn't made to hold carbonated beverages! This is where things started to get interesting.

Our eyes had been opened to the world of packaging; pressurized vs. unpressurized glass, and the vast world of PET.  We thought, "this can't be that hard, there are plenty of carbonated beverages out there on the shelves." Wrong! I mean, there are plenty of them out there, but have you ever seen one in a square bottle? I haven't. After extensive research and reaching out to various beverage brokers, our dreams of launching our product in the bottle we had set our hopes on was crushed.  We had exhausted every resource, including a variety of PET square bottles.  Reluctantly we started looking into cylindrical bottles in hopes we could find something that would fit our needs.

We ordered sample after sample, staying up late sending emails back and forth to China trying to find that perfect bottle.  All of the samples we ordered were duds.  Even the bottles that were advertised to hold carbonated beverages weren't cutting it. The cap would bulge, or the bottom would bulge or both.  All of the bottles that did work were either soda bottles, beer bottles, or a proprietary bottle that another beverage company had produced.  What to do?