I don’t know about you, but I personally consider it close to an arrestable offence to go out fishing early in the morning especially without some kind of hot drink, and as much as I do like a cup of Yorkshire Tea, for the most part it’s coffee that comes fishing with me. I used to carry one of those big stainless steel flanks in my bait fishing days, but something that size isn’t needed for my lure fishing. A mate put me onto the absolutely bloody brilliant little Lifeventure Thermal Mug a few years ago, and I haven’t looked back since - except for this slight misadventure here which I know he still giggles about…………..

Anyway, these Lifeventure Thermal Mugs are fantastic, and they keep a cup of tea or coffee or whatever nice and hot for a while, but by their design I suppose they can’t keep hot drinks piping hot for that long. This tends to suit me just fine for much of my fishing these days, and when I’m not carrying a hot drink I’ll have some kind of metal water bottle that keeps water nice and cold even in the warmest weather. I can’t praise the Lifeventure Thermal Mugs enough, and if it helps, I have found them on offer at £9.99 on the Lifeventure website here. I didn’t realise they also made a “Flip-Top” version of this Thermal Mug until I had a look the other day - these are also on offer at the moment for £9.99 - so I bought one for me in my Epic Berlingo, one for my wife, and one for my eldest girl because she loves a cup of tea for her ferry and bus journey to school in the mornings. They haven’t arrived yet but I hope they are good. By the way, don’t bother with the Lifeventure Ellipse Travel Mug - they are not leak-proof, the flip-top lids flip off and break, and the outside of the mug comes away from the inside. They also keep a hot drink hot in the car for about ten minutes at best.

But what I really wanted to talk about here was what I think are these newish Lifeventure TiV Vacuum Bottles. I guess the wonders of the internet have picked up on the fact that I run a regularly updated blog, and as a result I get the odd email from random PR companies offering me what are more often than not random and non-fishing related products to test out for a potential review. To be perfectly honest I delete these emails straight away because I don’t like the idea of what they are after, and what need do I have for a hair-straightener or waxing kit etc.?!

A while back though, a random PR company related email dropped into my Inbox extolling the virtues of the Lifeventure TiV Vacuum Bottle, and because the company name Lifeventure was in there I did actually read the email rather than hitting delete. For the first time ever I replied to a PR related email and said yes please, I would genuinely love to see what this product was like. To be fair they did actually get back to me and ask whether I would do a review of this product, to which I said that I needed time with the flask, but if I thought it was any good and might be interest to you lot I would something about it on here.

So me putting this review up here means that I think this Lifeventure TiV Vacuum Bottle is actually rather good. The smaller but doesn’t keep drinks piping hot for ages Lifeventure Thermal Mug has a capacity of 300ml - one mug of something hot - whereas this narrower and taller Lifeventure TiV Vacuum Bottle has a larger capacity of 500ml. To me that’s essentially a mug and a half of tea or coffee or hot gravel or whatever you might take out fishing with you. And no, I don’t do herbal teas. It probably goes without saying that a metal “bottle” like this keeps water cold for hours on end - and it does - but holy frigging cow it keeps hot drinks piping bloody hot as I found out the other day when I took a big gulp of coffee. I guess I’m used to my smaller Lifeventure Thermal Mug, and this more small flask style Lifeventure TiV Vacuum Bottle is miles better at keeping drinks seriously hot for far longer as the back of my mouth can attest to.

I tend to alternate between the two now depending on where I am going fishing and for how long and so on, and what I do quite like is how if I haven’t finished my coffee then it’s still nice hot for the drive home in my Epic Berlingo with its perfectly placed Epic Cup Holders. I can see myself making a couple of TiV Vacuum Bottles of coffee for this first light based surf fishing stuff in early summer next year when silly o’clock starts will be required - one flask to come out with me in the surf, and one left behind in the Epic Berlingo for the drive home. How’s that for some logical thinking eh? That’s what driving such an Epic Fridge On Wheels can do for you.

I wasn’t quite sure about the two-part lid as per above when I first laid eyes on it, but now I have used the thing a lot it makes sense. This is the blurb from the Lifeventure website: “The ergonomically shaped lid makes it easy and comfortable to carry and open. The lid is made of two parts enabling you to drink directly from the bottle without burning your mouth and allows a wide enough opening to place ice cubes inside”. It’s also handy from the point of view of getting what for me is a teaspoon and a half of coffee into the flask. I then screw the two-part lid on nice and tight and only unscrew the top part when having a drink from it. It’s easy to do and undo, and it all works just fine with not a hint of any leaks or anything like that. This Lifeventure TiV Vacuum Bottle is a well thought out and easy to use product which I happen to think is perfectly suited for how a lot of us go about our fishing and daily lives, and like with the Lifeventure Thermal Mugs, I noticed that it is currently on offer at £9.99 here on the Lifeventure website, with free UK Standard Delivery as well. Xmas sorted!

More reviews