Review: Brugo Travel Mug

Review: Brugo Travel Mug

Review: Brugo Travel Mug

By now every urban legend fanatic knows what a deadly menace too-hot coffee can be. Between the scorched privates and scaled tongues, it’s a miracle anyone drinks this stuff at all.

How do you get your coffee down to a tolerable temperature without it getting too cold? Brugo’s answer is an elaborate travel mug with a unique lid.

Tighten on the custom lid and turn the dial to “tip and cool” then rock the cup back and forth a bit. The coffee (or tea, or whatnot) fills a special channel in the lid designed to quickly cool the drink. You then drink it normally through the usual sippy-cup-style opening.

If that leaves you with too chilly a drink you can always bypass the channel with the “sip” setting and get full-temperature, scalding-hot coffee.

Brugo sounds great in theory but it’s asking an awful lot of a caffeine-deprived sleepyhead at 8 in the morning. Filling the channel with the rocking motion just the right way is the hard part, especially since you have to do that with every sip you take. If you’re like me, you either get no coffee in the sip channel, or you shake it so hard it flies out all over your hand. And it’s still hot when that happens, folks.

Nice idea, but the execution is too tricky, especially while you’re driving. Works fine, though, if you just use the regular “sip” setting… provided you can actually get the lid off…

Available in about a dozen colors. Holds 16 oz. in an ergonomic chassis.

C- / $20

Brugo Travel Mug

$20
4

Rating

4.0/10

A veteran journalist, the author of four books, a published poet, and an award-winning winemaker, Christopher Null has more than 25 years of experience writing about wine and spirits. He founded Drinkhacker in 2007. He also writes regularly about the science of booze for WIRED and is an occasional contributor to ADI's Distiller magazine. He has been a judge for both the American Distilling Institute Judging of Craft Spirits and Whiskies of the World spirits competitions and often works as a consultant, developing formal tasting notes for spirits brands around the world.

2 Comments

  1. Percy on June 4, 2010 at 12:40 am

    Out of interest I read you blog review and I was wondering how you had an issue in removing the lid? It is a screw top for easy removal and has a drinking hole for use on the go…?

    I think that you may need to read the instructions as they 2 that I have are easy to use and I personally think that the Brugo is currently the best mug on the market.

    Please post this feedback on your review as I am a consumer who believes in balance.

  2. Christopher Null on June 4, 2010 at 8:05 am

    Percy – I found the lid difficult to get a good grip on, probably due to the material it’s made from.

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