Gear Review -- SIGG Retro Heritage Bottle

The Gear Junkie Scoop: SIGG Retro Heritage Bottle
By STEPHEN REGENOLD

Its design comes via inspiration from a bottle made almost 80 years ago. But in hand, the new SIGG Retro Heritage bottle, available next month for $24.99, is strangely similar to aluminum water bottles made today.

Indeed, save for its ribbed exterior and an old-fashioned cap, the Retro Heritage acts like a common one-liter aluminum bottle. It uses the same “water-based, non-toxic liner” as other bottles in the SIGG line, and the cap screws on and off with plastic threads when you need a drink.

But the bottle looks cool. And there’s a story behind the Heritage model: The company designed it to resemble a vintage SIGG bottle from 1930. It was made to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the company, which was founded in 1908 when Ferdinand Sigg established a factory near Zurich and began selling his SIGG AG Aluminiumwarenfabrik line of saucepans, frying pans, and bottles.

Today, you can get a SIGG bottle that glows in the dark. Some have skulls, or smiley faces, or Hello Kitty cartoons. The Retro Heritage Bottle, though pricey at $25, is an appreciable retreat to a simple Swiss aesthetic of function and utility. Ferdinand Sigg might be proud.

—Stephen Regenold writes the weekly Gear Junkie Scoop for Outsidemag.com and TheGearJunkie.com.