I have way too many Yeti drinking vessels. I started with a 20 oz tumbler, which was appealing because it was insulated and dishwasher-safe (unlike many if not most insulated tumblers). One thing led to another, and sometime lately I realized I had eight different Yetis, including one I bought by accident and one I forgot I had. So this is just a Keltner list in inverse order of utility.
10 OZ TUMBLER: this is the one I bought my work teammates as a gift when we successfully deployed Jamf during the pandemic, aka “how we caught the snipe”. It’s endlessly versatile: cocktails, coffee, cold drink, an overflow cup, a go cup, fits in a pocket or the car cup holder. The only real disadvantage is that size: even though it’s actually 11 ounces, I’ve done shots that size. It is in fact ideally suited for travel, whether for morning coffee or “I’m going to discretely empty the rest of my pint into this before I walk back to the lodge.” For all that flexibility, though, it’s not the best thing for home, because you have to constantly keep refilling it. Still, if you keep refilling, you don’t have to wash.
16 OZ TUMBLER: this is my daily driver, the one I have worn to a frazzle. Like the 20 oz tumbler that preceded it, it actually holds 18 ounces, a comfortable half-liter, which is the perfect balance of size: good for a beer, good for morning coffee, good for iced tea or soda in human portions (learn, Euros). And the tapered stackable profile means it fits any cup holder, which the 20 oz version didn’t (at least in the Malibu). Ironically, being the one I can’t do without means it gets surpassed by more specialized other ones in regular use, especially in warm weather…
35 OZ MUG: Also known as “Veronica II” or “the Redneck Guzzler.” This replaced the 30 oz “Veronica” that I bought when I first tested positive for COVID-19 and needed to minimize my trips inside. I’m not being funny: 35 ounces is a lot. (It’s closer to 34, a comfortable bang-on one liter). The post-COVID role for Veronica was meant to be as a travel mug for long hauls in the car, and this does the job well: you need that handle and straw to make it easier to handle something of this size. When not traveling, it’s just the right size to throw in one family-size tea bag before bed and let cold brew overnight in the fridge, and with the coming of summer, it has become the principle iced tea vessel. The gaping maw makes it easy to hand-wash as well.
10 OUNCE ROCKS: actually holds 12, which makes it perfect as a rocks glass or as a serving size for a brewery growler or coffee cup. I forgot I had it because it was in with the camping supplies for a couple of years, but it is better suited for home use than its counterpart above. For one thing, it’s easier to scrub out, which is important with coffee residue. For another, it doesn’t fit in a cup holder, and you’d probably want more than that anyway. But its greatest utility to me is as a bedside cup of something (usually iced tea) to gulp in the morning when I’m too parched to work my mouth. It’s also the chosen instrument when you need to pour out the tailings of another Yeti to repurpose it as during the morning coffee-to-iced-tea transition.
18 OUNCE BOTTLE: this was bought when I wanted a water bottle to go back and forth to work. It’s good for that, and for other things besides; as long as you leave the cap off, you can use it for most anything you’d use the 16 ounce tumbler for. it’s basically uncleanable by hand, though, so you’d better make sure you don’t crud it up with stuff the dishwasher can’t handle. And while its screw top makes it the only thing that can go in a backpack, it also means you shouldn’t try to put carbonated beverage in it (as I learned, to my cost. Hercules couldn’t have got that lid off.) Even though it’s less concealable than the 10 ounce tumbler, I feel like it would make a very good keep cup for travel in its own right, and I would probably go on a road trip with it and the 35 as my only drinking utensils. It may wind up on my next Disney trip, whenever that is, especially since I do have a belt holster for it.
24 OUNCE MUG: Now we get to the limited utility stuff. This was my late mother-in-law’s, and I am loath to get rid of it for just that reason, but it’s mostly been used as the thing where I brew two family teabags into enough concentrate for a 64-ounce pitcher. It doesn’t fit a cup holder, and I won’t put alcohol in it, but it’s a nice bonus size for coffee in the morning if necessity requires (and means it could be part of substituting for the 16oz daily driver, although I find it significant that it would take three or four things on this list to replace the 16.)
14 OUNCE MUG. This was bought in a moment of mental abstraction during the pandemic, when I thought I might someday be back in the office. It’s meant for office coffee use: too wide to take a standard V60 dripper, it’s meant to be poured into from pot or dispenser and then wide-mouthed enough to cool quickly, while still having a lid that can be popped on to take down the hall to meetings without spills. I would probably have given it away by now except that it has the old star-V Vanderbilt logo on it, and they don’t make those anymore. So now it reposes with the camping gear, where it can be useful for coffee or whiskey or oatmeal alike.
10 OUNCE WINE TUMBLER: the least useful of them all, this one actually holds only 9 ounces of liquid. Great for wine, but as the husband of a teetotal wife who myself gets heartburn for red wine, this is unlikely to ever see a lot of use. It was ordered as the maquette for the 25th anniversary EUS commemorative markings, though (which appear on the Redneck Guzzler), so to give it away would feel a bit awkward especially in the wrong hands. Still, i don’t need EIGHT Yetis, so I suspect it may wind up re-homed at some point.
Phew. That’s a lot. That’s actually too much. I could almost certainly survive with just the 16 oz tumbler, then maybe the rocks glass. Still, it’s nice to have options, especially with Veronica II. But the fact that I could give away three tomorrow were it not for sentimental attachment seems like a significant data point.